Inkt-GO-Ber Collection
by WolfieJimi
Summary: 31 Short Stories written over 31 Days, based on the 2019 Inktober Prompts! Lots and lots of domestic fluff and friendshippiness, historical stories, Warlock stories, meta-ish philosophical stories, angst, a few (hopefully loveable!) OCs, very fun and crack-y AUs, and lots and lots of comedy! Inktober2019 DONE, baby!
1. 1 Ring

"I can't believe you have actually brought me _here _, Crowley." Aziraphale folded his arms across his chest and glowered at the Demon sitting next to him. He was wearing a ridiculous t-shirt with _Never Be The Same _emblazoned across it, and a black faux-leather jacket that proudly proclaimed that its wearer was _The Man _. Crowley was wearing, that is to say, not Aziraphale. Aziraphale wouldn't be seen _discorporated _in any of that paraphernalia. As hard as Crowley had tried to convince him to buy an awful t-shirt with a red heart and the word _Rebel _written on it...

"What!" Crowley barked back at him, his eyes still roaming the arena with hungry anticipation. "I got us seats right by the ring, angel! Literally, there are no better seats in the house. Look, here we are, and there's the ring, what, five metres away, if that? What are you complaining about?"

"You told me we were going to the theatre, Crowley!"

Crowley turned to look at him and bobbed his head snakishly from side to side. "Yeeeeah, well- but- I mean- _WWE _is theatre, isn't it?" He pulled a face. "Sort of."

"I've half a mind to walk out right this second," the Angel snapped back, sounding for all the world like a very tired and very annoyed school teacher dealing with a particularly troublesome pupil.

"Ah, nnnnnk, don't be like that, angel. You'll like it, really."

Aziraphale scoffed. "_Like _it? What on earth is there possibly to_ like_ about watching humans deliberately injure each other? It's barbaric. Honestly I thought better of you, Crowley."

"What? Deliberately inj-? Aziraphale, wrestling isn't- this isn't Cage Fighting. It's not boxing. No one gets hurt." He paused. "Well, at least, not on purpose. It's all perfectly safe. Well, not _perfectly _safe, but, I mean- It's not _real _, angel."

"Of course it's _real_. I wasn't born yesterday. I had to perform a miracle at a wrestling event in America back in the late 1970s, and there was _blood_, Crowley. A man hit another man with a _chair_! In his _face_!"

"No, Aziraphale, it's not- that's-" Then he laughed, and put on a strange, gruff, American voice that irritated Aziraphale to no end. "It's still real to you, damn it!"

"What are you _talking about _?"

"Sorry. I'm sorry. It's nothing." The Demon spluttered with laughter once more before sobering up. "Look, d'you trust me?" He looked imploringly at the Angel.

Aziraphale eyed him sceptically. But what could he do? Crowley didn't use the puppy-dog eyes often. When he did, it was extremely difficult to say no to him. And, truthfully, Aziraphale did trust Crowley. He wished he _didn't,_ but he did. "I suppose so…" he sighed.

Crowley smiled. "Then _trust me_, alright? It's. Not. Real. No one is trying to hurt anyone. It's like, like, mmmnnkk, it's like..." He paused, thinking. "It's like in Romeo and Juliet, right? That big fight scene, yeah? And they all fight, and some people die, and it's all like _oh, no, what a disaster, everyone's fighting, what will happen next, oh my god _, right?"

Aziraphale frowned at him. Crowley continued.

"Well they aren't all really dead, are they? The Royal Shakespeare Company isn't just killing off actors on a nightly basis, are they?"

"You're being ridiculous."

"_This _is the _same _! It's all acting, angel. Really, really, good fight-acting. And it's all for the sake of _story_. That's why you'll like it. It's all story, Aziraphale. It's great."

Aziraphale thought about this.

"Pro-Wrestling is like _Romeo and Juliet."_

"Exactly! Well not exactly. _Romeo and Juliet _is rubbish. This is actually fun. And the Good Guys _always _win, in wrestling. You never have to worry about, ngk, _unfairness _. No _tragedy, _at least not forever. Justice always triumphs. It's great. You'll like it."

"So… It's all fake, then?"

"The fighting is fake. They don't really hurt each other." Crowley pulled a face. "Much."

"So what you are telling me is that you have brought me to watch adults pretend to fight each other?"

"Yes!" Crowley frowned. "Wait, no. Well, yes. But- Look, just watch it, alright? If you don't like it, you don't have to come again. Just give it a chance. I sat through all of _Jesus Christ Superstar _with you, didn't I?"

Aziraphale sighed. "I suppose so."

"Yeah. Well. Exactly. If I had to put up with _Tim Minchin _butchering those songs…"

Aziraphale winced at the memory. "Yes, that wasn't the _best _casting choice…"

"You'll like this _way _more than that."

"That isn't exactly _difficult _, Crowley. But I still won't enjoy this," the Angel said, superciliously.

"Okay, if you say so."

_One Hour Later_

"You two. Out. Now." A burly security man stood with his hands on his hips in front of Aziraphale and Crowley.

"No, look, it's fine, you don't have to throw us out. He won't cause any more trouble."

Aziraphale glared at Crowley.

"_Will he?" _Crowley said, glaring back at the dishevelled Angel.

"No…"

"And he won't do anything else _stupid _like _jumping the barrier and trying to climb into the ring? _"

"That man, the one with the bald head, he was _cheating _, Crowley! He had a _baseball bat! _He was going to use it on the one with the beard! And the referee wasn't listening when I shouted at him to turn around! He was too busy being distracted by the bald man's associate!"

"It's not _real _, Aziraphale, for Gods- For Satans- for _my sake _! We went through this!"

"Well, I know but… It still wasn't fair. I couldn't stand by and let such terrible injustice happen a mere five metres from my face…"

"Ugh I should have known this would happen. It's _The Lion King _all over again."

"That wasn't my fault, Crowley."

"Wasn't your fault!? You-"

"Come on, _out _!" The security guard grabbed the pair of them by their arms.

"Oi, watch it, _mate _," Crowley hissed.

"Can't you, you know, _do something _about it?" Aziraphale whispered.

"I can't be bothered, let's just leave. S'too embarrassing… I can't believe you, angel. This is- ngk."

"It is jolly good fun though," Aziraphale chirped happily as the security guard led them both out of the arena. "I liked the little feisty one with the pink and blue hair, she was wonderful. You know, I really wouldn't mind attending one of these shows again, Crowley. It's all very entertaining."

Crowley made a strangled sort of sound in the back of his throat. "Right. Brilliant. Of course." He shook his head wearily, and couldn't quite suppress an exhausted yet fond smile in the face of his incorrigibly delinquent Angel. "Fine. But next time, we are sitting as far away from the ring as possible."


	2. 2 Mindless

"Are you sure you don't mind, my dear?"

"Yes, angel, I'm sure. Well, I mean, that is to say I could _mind less _, obviously. But-."

"What do you mean, you could 'mind less'? What's that supposed to mean?"

"What? It- Well, it just means I _could _mind, erm, _less _. That, ngk, I don't mind, but I could, theoretically, if pressed, mind... less."

"Which means you do mind."

"Yes but-"

"I knew it. I knew you minded."

"No, I don't! I mean, I- I don't entirely _unmind _. I don't- I'm not- ngk. Aziraphale, I said it's okay, alright? I don't mind. I really don't."

"You don't mind _much _, you mean..."

"Yes. Fine. Whatever. I don't mind _much _. Ugh that word has lost all meaning. Can we stop saying it now?"

"I just want to be certain that you don't mind."

"Why does it even matter if I mind!?"

"Of course it matters if you mind, Crowley."

"Why!"

"Because I care about what you think."

"... Oh."

"And if it bothers you in any way, then _I _mind."

"...Right."

"Because _you _matter, Crowley, and I care about you."

"...Ngk."

"So?"

"Whuh?" Crowley swallowed and blinked, dazedly. "Sorry. What? So what?"

"So, are you sure you don't mind if we paint the living room of the summer cottage in _Whimsy Half _blue, instead of _Star Grass _green?"

Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Aziraphale. We've been in B&Q for _two hours _looking at paint. I don't mind. I don't mind if you prefer the green, I don't mind if you prefer the blue, I don't mind if you paint the entire cottage from top to bottom in _Prophetic Purple _! I was just trying to seem interested! I can barely even see the difference between _Whippy Blue _and _Space Weed Green _or whatever the ssstupid names are! I. Don't. Mind. I could not mind less. There is no possible way in which I could mind less. I am, in fact, on the verge of _losing my mind _. Alright!?"

Aziraphale glared at Crowley for what felt like an eternity.

"What you are telling me is that you don't mind what colour we paint the living room?_ Our _living room? _Our _living room of _our _summer cottage on the South Downs where _we _can go to spend _our _holidays _together _? You have absolutely no interest whatsoever? Is that what you are telling me?"

Crowley winced. It did sound bad when he put it like that. "Ngk. ...Yes?"

Aziraphale's face lit up, and he smiled as brightly as _Downy Chick Yellow _. Or was it _Sun Porch Gold _?

"Why didn't you say so in the first place, my dear!"

"What?"

"Well, if you don't mind either way, I can just pick out any old colour and we can head off for a nice lunch somewhere, instead. I've heard the _Dove and Star _down the road does an excellent late lunch menu. How does that sound?"

Crowley shook his head.

"I- You- What?! ...You are the most infuriating and ridiculous person I have ever met! I_ love _you. Absolute _nightmare _!"

"Excuse me?"

"What? Nothing. I didn't say anything."

"That's what I thought. Lunch, then?"

"Yeah. Yep. Sure. Ngk. Whatever. Don't mind."


	3. 3 Bait

_Florence, some time in the mid-14th Century _.

It was dark. It was _really _dark. The moon was waxing crescent and the heavy clouds that loitered around it hurled surly threats of rain at all passers-by that looked at them the wrong way. It was the kind of night where all sensible people not only stayed behind doors, but double-bolted them and took the key out of the lock, just to be sure.

In the darkness, Crowley _grinned _.

Tonight was a big night. Months of preparation had led up to this. His underground spy network of ruffians and ne'er-do-wells had been providing him with top quality information, and he had spent meticulous weeks maneuvering and manipulating events from the shadows. A carefully placed word in the right ear here, a calculated catalyst there, all leading up to this night. To this moment. To the final brush stroke in this _masterwork _. Crowley was nothing if not an artist.

Something moved in the shadows. Crowley took a steeling breath. He was here. The man who stood as the unknowing lynchpin of all this chicanery. The man who would be Crowley's _piece de resistance…_

"Um, hello?"

Crowley tripped out of the shadows and flailed his hands, palms up.

"_ Aziraphale _? Oh for fu- No. You can't be here. Go away!"

The Angel leaned out into the paltry light cast by the moon as it shrugged off one of its cloud bodyguards to get a better view. "Crowley? Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me, of course it's me. Don't ask stupid questions, Angel. That's why you're here, isn't it? I've come up with a plan so perfect that you couldn't not stick your nose in and try to interfere with it. Well, I'm not having it. I've spent _weeks _on this one. You can just bugger off."

"I have no idea what you are talking about. I'm here entirely on my own business, I'll have you know."

"Oh yeah, sure. You just _happened _to be here in this exact secluded alley, in this exact city, in this exact country, on this exact night, at this exact time, and that's just all one big_exacting _coincidence, is it? You expect me to believe that?"

"Quite frankly I don't care what you believe, Crowley. But I would appreciate it if you could please _leave _. And with some alacrity…" Aziraphale glanced around anxiously, speaking in a hushed, if irritable, whisper. "I'm expecting someone."

"_ You're _expecting someone?"

"Yes." The Angel smiled smugly. "It's all rather brilliant, actually. I've been working on this famed rogue, you see. Quite the mover in the underworld; lawless, unscrupulous, causing trouble and committing crimes wherever he treads, you know the drill. Only he clearly has quite a bit of _good _in him too. My little spy network has been feeding me information about him for quite some time. I've had reports of him helping disabused _lanaioli _move against their wicked employers, coming to the aid of the _popolo minuto _, feeding small, hungry children, and suchlike..."

Crowley rolled his eyes. Aziraphale continued.

"So, I've been carefully moving things from behind the scenes, as it were, to nudge him over to the Good Side. Tonight I am supposed to finally meet him and give him the final push, as it were. He's going to be my _magnum opus!" _The Angel wiggled happily, before turning his annoying smirk into an annoyed frown. "And so _you _simply cannot be here, I'm afraid. You can go off and do your skulking someplace else."

Crowley snarled irritatedly. "I'm not _skulking _! I'm _waiting! _"

Aziraphale waved his hands dismissively in a gesture that seemed to Crowley rather too close to _shooing _. "Go and wait somewhere else then."

"I _can't _, I'm waiting for _someone _."

"Who?"

"Argh! Look, I've been working on someone too, alright? Some do-gooder who's been going around doing all sorts of charity work, converting the unwashed masses to his stupid do-gooder-ism, and generally being a paragon of virtue everywhere he goes, you know the type. _Except _my own network of people have it on good evidence that he isn't actually all that he appears to be. Has a taste for good wine and good food, and lots of it, and has been hanging around with decadent literati types, you know the sort who like to throw debauched parties and talk derisively about _Dante _and pretend like they're at a modern-day _symposium _."

Aziraphale nodded.

"Anyway, so I figured, perfect guy to tempt over to Hell's Side, right? Already got a few chinks in the _white knight _armour, all he needs is a few good jabs with a…" Crowley pulled a face. "Do people still joust? I hate people who joust. People who joust need better hobbies. Too much money and too much time and too little sense."

"It is rather stupid," the Angel agreed. "And unbelievably dull to watch."

"I worry about the horses. But anyway, whatever, the point is, I'm supposed to be meeting him here tonight for the first time. To put the final nails in the temptation coffin, so to speak. _So you can't be here!"_

"I'm not leaving!"

"I was here first!"

"But if my human turns up and I'm not here, you'll turn him back onto the path of iniquity! All of my work will be undone!"

"Well if_ I'm _not here when _my _human turns up, then you'll set him back onto the path of righteousness and _bang! _there goes my commendation. I've been working on this for _ages _."

Aziraphale and Crowley glowered at each other across the dark alleyway.

"It would appear that we are at somewhat of a standstill," the Angel said, coldly.

They stared at each other for a few moments more.

"Alright. Alright. How about this," Crowley said. "We both wait in the shadows so we can't be seen, and then whoever's human turns up first the other one has to leave them to it."

Aziraphale thought about this.

"I suppose that's fair…"

"Deal?" The Demon asked, holding out his hand.

The Angel looked at it as though it might explode, but after a brief moment's hesitation, shook it. "Deal. But my human will show up first. The truly_ good _, as I believe mine is, deep down, always keep good time. They always arrive first.

"We'll see," Crowley replied.

_Several Hours Later_

"...and then when Filippo married Beatrice, that was when I washed my hands of the whole affair. Completely irredeemable, the lot of them. Complete waste of three years, that was. I was _livid _."

"Ngk, _ouch _. That's brutal, Angel. Pass me the wine?"

Aziraphale passed Crowley the wine.

"Are you sure my person didn't show up whilst I was getting this?" The Angel asked, frowning, and nodding at the flagon of surprisingly nice red wine Crowley was now swigging from.

Crowley rolled his eyes. "Ugh, look, I gave you my word, didn't I? I'd keep an eye out whilst you went and got wine and something to eat, if you brought some back for me too. We agreed. If your dude showed up, I'd stall him 'til you got back. That was the deal. I don't renege on deals, Angel."

"You are a Demon."

"Yeah, but I have _class _."

Aziraphale considered this.

"Where on earth is he, then? We've been here _ages _."

"No idea. No sign of mine, either. I was given a_ guarantee _that he had taken the bait, as well. Bloody riffraff I rely on for information. Can't trust any of them further than I can throw them."

"Humans," Aziraphale scoffed derisively, "can't be relied upon for anything. It's a miracle either of us ever get _any _work done... Give me back the wine, please?"

Crowley handed him back the wine.

"Well, I'm about ready to call it a night." Crowley glanced up at the sky which was beginning to bleed streaks of deep purple and red. "Ugh. Or call it a _morning _…"

"Me too," Aziraphale replied.

Neither of them made a move to stand.

"What a waste," Aziraphale sighed. "I'm beginning to wonder if focusing on individuals isn't an efficient use of time, you know."

"Yeah. Picking off one human at a time does seem a bit…" Crowley pulled a face. "And that's when they bother to _show up _. I mean, there are so many people, to spend months,_years _just chipping away at one…"

"Need a new method," Aziraphale agreed, slurring his words slightly.

"Mmhm."

"It's like fishing for… some small fish… in a big ocean… with one fishing rod."

"I don't do fishing."

"Well, neither do I. But that's not the point."

"What'd the fish ever do? They're just swimming about, minding their own business, then bam! Sky's rushing towards them and suddenly all the water's gone and that's that. Hardly seems fair."

"What I _mean _is we should be casting a wider net. We'd get a lot more done with a lot less time wasted, that way. More souls saved, less effort expended. More time off, then, too. Wouldn't have to miss so many theatre performances." He paused. " _I _should be casting a wider net, I mean. I. Not we. I. Obviously."

Birds began to chirp in the tree above them.

"Right, I'm going home, angel. This has been a bust."

Crowley heaved himself to his feet, and offered his hand to Aziraphale, who absent-mindedly took it, pulling himself up.

"Sorry about your_ loveable rogue _leaving you in the lurch, angel."

"Hmm. And I'm sorry that your _hedonistic hero _didn't come through for you, dear boy."

"Eh, what can you do?"

"Quite."

The Angel and the Demon parted ways.

Both Crowley's spies and Aziraphale's spies had been secretly watching the proceedings from adjoining rooftops in case anything went wrong, unbeknownst to each other, of course. Both sides had disappeared into the night, pleased to say that their respective Marks had taken the bait hook, line, and sinker, and that their entire plans had both been A Resounding Success.

Both spies were therefore somewhat put out when their irritated respective bosses fired them the following day, and stormed out of the country in a sulk.

There's just no pleasing some people.


	4. 4 Freeze

_Heaven, Lower Upper Basement Level, Earth Observation Department_

"I don't see it."

"No, look! There! See?"

"Where? There's nothing there!"

"Oh, for God's sake, you missed it_ again _. Look, rewind. Further, further… Okay, hit play… wait, wait... Freeze!"

The Angel with dark hair slammed the pause button on their celestial Pear Mac computer (it wasn't an Apple Mac. They don't _do _Apples in Heaven) at the smaller Angel's command.

"There!" The shorter Angel with very curly hair said, excitedly. "There, do you see?!" They pointed at the screen.

The dark-haired angel narrowed their eyes and leaned in close to the monitor. "I'm not sure, man…"

"Dude! They are _totally _holding hands! Look at the elbow position! Look at the body angle! I'm telling you!"

"I dunno…"

"Duuuuude, it totally is. I'm adding it to the _Is Aziraphale Dating The Demon? _tally chart. Which takes us up to..." The Angel scanned the chart hanging on the wall opposite. It was pink and glittery and decorated with what looked like cotton-wool-ball clouds but could possibly have been the real thing. "...24 in the _No_ column, 112 in the _Totally_ column, and 5,493 in the _Maybe_ column."

"Half of the things you chalk up in the _Totally _column are definitely _Maybe _s though, Zophiel. Like, case in point, this so-called 'hand-holding' freeze is totally _not _one for the _Totally _ column. That's a _Maybe _. And it's pushing it as a _Maybe _. You can't even see their hands, that old dude with the panama hat is in the way."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You're just bitter 'cos you don't have a cute Demon boyfriend to miracle you up pancakes and shit, Penemue."

"Shut up. I don't need a Demon boyfriend to make me pancakes. _You _can make me pancakes, if I ever feel the need to eat pancakes. Which I won't, coz pancakes suck. And anyway,_as if _I'd be jealous of _Aziraphale _. He's the only Angel with a worse gig than us."

Zophiel threw themself down into their desk chair with a grin, lazily hooking their feet over the armrest. They were wearing purple and white Converse daps beneath their celestial robes. The laces had little skulls on them.

"I dunno, dude, _he _seems to like it down there. Did you watch that epic scene in the… What was it, the 1800s? When Gabriel went down there and tried to promote him, and he like totally lost his shit? He was so nervous. That body-language, man. He so did not want to come back up here."

"Oh yeah, and then Crowley pulled that monster-demon crap on Gabriel so that he changed his mind. That was epic."

"Yeah but the point is," Zophiel continued, "Crowley did that cos Aziraphale was like, so totally buggin' about coming back to Heaven. S'kinda totally adorable, actually, him coming to his _angel _'s rescue like that. I love that _white knight _shit. But what I mean is Aziraphale _likes _his job, I'm telling you. Can't account for it, but he clearly does."

"Yeah, but Aziraphale is _weird _."

"Yeah, but weird in an adorable way."

"Yeah, but still weird."

"Yeah."

Penemue began idly flicking through the Earth Observation Channels. They stopped on one showing a giraffe. Zophiel began rummaging through a desk drawer until they found a lollipop. They held it up triumphantly and then began to struggle to remove the wrapper.

"Zoph…"

"Mm?"

"Do you think we should, like, you know, like… _tell _someone about this?"

"I dunno, never really thought about it. I guess they are kind of weird. Necks are waaaaaay too long, and they have weird fur, like, who decided to cover 'em with orange and beige crazy paving. And those freaky little nobbly things on their heads, what even are they? Freaks me out, man. Dunno who we'd tell though. Bodoras left Zoology, not sure if anyone replaced him yet…"

"What?" Penemue frowned at Zophiel for a few seconds, and then rolled their eyes dramatically. "Oh for fu- Not about the giraffe, idiot. About _them _. Aziraphale and Crowley. I mean, is that not… Are we not… I mean, shouldn't we have told someone about this? Like… about two thousand years ago?"

"Naaaaaah..."

"Yeah, I dunno if '_ nah _' is gonna persuade me on this, Zo," Penemue said. They watched for a few moments as Zophiel's attention continued to be held by the lollipop, and then waved an impatient hand in their direction. The wrapper disappeared with a slightly over-embellished puff of smoke.

"Oh come off it, Pen - hey, thanks! - no one ever looks at _anything _we do. I don't even know why they bother observing the stupid Earth, no one cares what happens down there. Look at that time the humans dropped that fuck-off huge nuke on that island. Like, I prepared this whole awesome presentation on it, it like even had glitter and, like, this dinky little mushroom cloud that _really moved _when you twisted this little pin at the back, but Michael literally couldn't have cared less. No one is gonna care what their guy on the ground is up to with his cute snake boyfriend."

"Zophiel, you can't call the Demon 'cute'..."

"Why not?"

"Uh… Cos he's a _Demon _?"

"Yeah, _and _? Did you not see her in the 1940s, after Crowley faked his death in that Church and came back as Anthony J.'s ' _sister _'? Which, by the way, _what a twist. _I literally never want them to break up, 'cos that Demon is one seriously Dramatic Bitch. No wonder Aziraphale is so besotted. Watching those two is better than _Home And Away. _And you _know_how much I love _Home And Away.. _. But yeah, man, she _killed it _in those stiletto heels and that pin curl set. Crowley was, like _made _for 1940s fashion. Soooooo pretty."

"Yeah, no, you aren't wrong. That was such a Look."

"Crowley dresses so well."

"And always has such good hair."

"_ Such _good hair."

"Do you think I could pull off that hair?" Penemue waved a hand and their own dark hair fell into a mass of red Rita Hayworth waves. "What do you think?" They pouted and rested their hands on their chin, fluttering their eyelashes theatrically.

Zophiel wrinkled their nose. "Nah, I like your hair better on you."

Penemue waved their hand again and their usual hair pinged back into place.

"Yeah, much better, Pen. You aren't _classy _enough for a Crowley look."

"Thanks…"

"Yeah but I'm right though, aren't I?"

"Yeah."

They both stared at the giraffe on the monitor for a few minutes.

"Zoph…"

"Mmm?"

"Do you actually, really, genuinely think that they are, like, you know… _in love _? Like, it is a bit of fun, and that… It is one of the better ways to pass the time in this Godforsaken job, but like… I don't know, man. I know you are a bit wanton with your tally charts, but I'm legit getting convinced..."

"Pen, my dude, they are_ so _in love. Like, that's not even in question at this point. Now I'm just waiting for _them _to realise it."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah seriously. Do you think I'd go to all this trouble if I wasn't serious? I made a _mood board _, Pen. When they get married, I'm so crashing the wedding. I always keep three days of leave banked, just in case. I'm gonna give them my _Aziraphale 3 Crowley _photo album as a wedding gift. Oh dude, that reminds me, did I show you the " _Aziraphale x Crowley Best Of _" compilation video I made? It's so super cute. I edited together all the nicest footage we have of them over the past 6,000 years, and put realy lovely music to it - I actually nipped across to Asphodel and got Liszt to compose me something just for it. It's awesome. It's like an hour long. We gotta add that freeze-frame of them holding hands at Glyndebourne to it, actually."

"They aren't holding hands…"

"Shut up they so are holding hands. Pull the still off for me? I can add it to my photo album."

"Literally, Michael is going to kill you if she ever gets hold of this shit, Zophiel."

"Michael's an ass."

"Yeah. But still."

A notification popped up on the computer screen. It was bright red, and flashing, and it made a tiny little siren noise. Penemue and Zophiel both jerked their heads around in unison and stared at it.

"Is that what I think it is, Pen?"

"Um. Yeah."

They both stared at the little flashing Halo icon.

"Well go on then. Click on it, Zo."

"Why me?"

"You're closest."

"Ugh fine…"

Zophiel leaned across the desk and double clicked on the icon.

_I need you to compile a folder of data pertaining to Earth Agent Aziraphale. Specifically, all data on interactions with the Demon known as Crowley. I will collect in 15 minutes. Your discretion in this matter is appreciated and mandatory. __  
__Michael, Archangel_

Penemue and Zophiel stared blankly at the screen.

"_ Shit _."

"...Ditto."

They turned to stare blankly at each other instead of the screen, just to mix it up a bit.

"D'you think they're in trouble?" Zophiel asked nervously, pushing their hair out of their eyes.

"I dunno. I reckon so," Penemue replied.

Zophiel chewed on the inside of their cheek.

"We should probably give Michael everything…"

"Yeah. That's definitely what we should do. That is absolutely and categorically the thing that we should definitely do."

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah we should, really..."

"But…"

"But… We _could _just… Like, you know… _Not _do that…"

"You mean, instead of handing them over to Michael like a pair of modern day Judases, we could, like, _not _do that."

"Yeah. I mean we _won't _not do that. Obviously. But..."

"Obviously. But we could. Hypothetically."

"Yeah. But that would be a stupid thing to do. Hypothetically."

"Yeah. So stupid."

Penemue and Zophiel stared at each other again.

"Fuck it," Pen said.

Both of the Angels jumped to their feet.

Zophiel tore down the tally chart from the wall and stuffed it behind the desk. Penemue leapt over to the main computer and began removing all of the Aziraphale and Crowley footage, dragging it all across to the USB stick that clipped into the necklace they kept around their neck. Then they began deleting everything.

"We need to give Michael _something _, though," Pen hissed at Zophiel as the curly little Angel kicked a filing cabinet closed with some serious brute force. "She clearly knows_something _about the stupid Angel and his stupid Snake. She'll be hella suss if we are all like ' _Oh no, dunno what you're on about Mikey, our lad Zira he's as clean as a whistle, no fraternizing here! _'"

"Yeah you're right. Uh, uh, Look. Just... Print off a few not-so incriminating photos or something. And don't go before, like 1000 AD. No, make it 1500AD. Just so it looks like maybe it's a recent dalliance. Not dalliance. Alliance. Not alliance. Partnership? Whatever. Just make it look recent. Less damning then. For them _and _us…"

"Which photos do I use then?! You just save all of the ones of them pining behind each other's back, we can't use those! Quick, Zophiel! You have an encyclo-fucking-paedic knowledge of the idiots, _use it _!"

"Um, um, um… Argh! Um… Okay… Go for… The one of them in the park, St James'."

"DUDE they are ALWAYS in that park!"

"Oh yeah... Uh, okay, okay, uh… Use the one from that time they had that fight and Crowley disappeared for like a hundred years. Cos they look all cross with each other in that. Not friendly at all. God, I _cried _when I watched that for the first time. I really thought they were over. But then of course he pops back up again and-"

"Not _now _, Zophiel!"

"Sorry. Um, okay, so that one, and… What about one from the Globe? When they went to watch _Hamlet _?"

"Why?"

"Because their outfits were cute and I liked it when Aziraphale did that little "_ Come On Hamlet, Buck Up!" _thing?"

Penemue dragged their hand down their face. "Fine. Okay. Whatever. We still need one more… I'll get a recent-ish one. From, like, around the time Satan's kid got sent to Earth. Because that would make sense, right? That maybe they'd meet to discuss that? As professionals? That's less incriminating, right?"

"Yes! Good thinking! God, you're so smart, Pen. Use the one of them on the bench. The one where Crowley is looking away and Aziraphale is staring at him. That's so cute."

"Yeah, Zo, _cute _isn't what we are going for."

Another message pinged up on the computer screen.

_On my way. Michael._

"Argh!"

"It'll have to do. That'll just have to do. Zoph, you go and grab them from the printer, I'll do a quick once over of the office and make sure we haven't missed anything. Alright?"

"Yeah. Alright."

Zophiel rushed to the door. Then they hesitated and turned back to their friend.

"Um, Pen?"

"What?!" Penemue snapped.

"They're gonna be okay, aren't they?"

"I… don't know."

"Only, I hope so..."

"Yeah, me too."

"Pen?"

"Yeah?"

Are _we _gonna be okay?"

"Yeah… Yeah, of course. Although, I mean- Maybe we should… lay low for a bit. You still got a few weeks of holiday time left?"

"Yeah."

"Me too. Maybe we should _use that _. Soon..."

"Yeah. Yeah, good idea. I mean, it'll be fine. But. Yeah..."

"Zoph?"

"Yeah?"

"Love you."

"Love you too, dude."

"Now hurry the hell along and grab those photos before Michael gets here and busts our asses for being slow. We got this, Zophiel."

Zophiel grinned.

"Dude, _duh _."


	5. 5 Build

Aziraphale sighed and looked up at the sky as a few dejected drops of rain began to fall. He pulled his pipe out from his pocket, lit it, and stepped back under Heaven and Hell's shared smoking shelter.

"Oi."

Aziraphale smiled as he heard the familiar voice call out from behind him. It was the first time he had smiled all day. Well, the first time he had smiled and meant it, anyway. He turned around.

"You hiding out here too, then?" Crowley drawled nonchalantly as he placed a cigarette between his lips and flicked open a lighter.

Aziraphale puffed up indignantly out of habit. "I'm not _hiding _, Crowley, I'm-" He thought back to the Godforsaken conference room where he really ought to be right now, and deflated with a sigh. "...hiding."

"Heaven got you doing this stupid teambuilding _day _?"

"Unfortunately..."

"Yeah, we're doing it Downstairs too. I'm about ready to rip my own eyes out, to be honest."

Aziraphale winced. "It's not great."

"What have your lot had you doing?" Crowley asked, leaning back against the wall and bending one leg. He looked for all the world like the Bad Influence antagonists in those anti-smoking campaigns popular in the 90s that only succeeded in making smoking look really, really cool.

Aziraphale sighed. "Oh, it's awful, Crowley. First they made us play this _ridiculous _game where we had to share our worst professional memory with a partner in front of the group - and of _course _Gabriel made me get up first - and then the Angel we were paired with had to retell the story in a positive light."

"Ugh. Who were you paired with?"

"Sandalphon…"

"_ Ugh _."

"Quite… And then, after hearing my story - I obviously didn't choose my actual worst professional memory-"

"The one where Michael showed up unexpectedly and you were blazing drunk and in the middle of a game of-"

"Yes, yes, don't bring it all back up," Aziraphale snapped. "Not that memory. I just told them about a miracle that didn't go completely to plan and I ended up accidentally getting that poor girl's house flooded."

Crowley chuckled at the memory. He'd helped clear up that mess, then took credit for the frankly _extensive _damage, down in Hell. Aziraphale had paid for dinner after as thanks, although Crowley had insisted he didn't need to. The chaos the Angel had wrought on that climate change campaigner's house had earned the Demon a congratulatory note from Dagon complimenting him on his _finesse _.

"How did Sandalphon reframe that in a positive light, then?"

"He didn't," Aziraphale replied bitterly. "He just stared at me and then turned to Gabriel and asked for a different partner."

Crowley spluttered a laugh.

"It's not funny, Crowley."

"It's a bit funny, angel."

"And _then _they made us build a _Memory Wall _."

"What the hell is that when it's at home?"

"A very long whiteboard with ridiculous headings written on it like _Work Trips _and _First Day In A New Role _and _My Favourite Smiting _. Everyone had to fill in little post it notes with their own personal examples and pin them up on the board."

"Joy."

"It was horrible, Crowley. Everyone was enthusiastically recalling,_ in detail _, things like Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Plagues of Egypt, and all of the other clique-y little things they've done together over the years, all of the promotions and showy miracles and frankly bloodthirsty smitings…"

Crowley pouted sympathetically.

"It sounds silly, I know, but I felt somewhat like an outsider..." The Angel twisted his ring. "And what's worse is that I rather wished to be _more _outside, if that makes any sense at all… I'm sure they are all lovely people _really _, but socially we simply don't have an awful lot in common. I don't know how I'm going to force myself to go back up there, Crowley, I really don't."

The Demon tilted his head and drew his eyebrows together, mouth open ever so slightly as though he wanted to say something but wasn't quite sure what, or how.

"What about you?" Aziraphale asked, deciding that the best course of action right now was to change the subject. "Same kind of thing?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Crowley replied. "Stupid puzzle solving and games, bullshit like that. We had to do_ Two Truths And A Lie _, which Ligur completely missed the point of. He just told three lies, and it took everyone _way _too long to realise." Crowley flicked some ash off of the end of his cigarette. "And then we had to pair off to do that stupid _Dog, Chicken, Grain _riddle…Ngk, that was really bad. I got paired with Hastur, and he just kept raising his hand to ask the most inane questions. ' _Why does a farmer have a fox? The fox is the natural enemy of the farmer. Why doesn't the farmer just drown the fox?' _"

Aziraphale thought about this. "Why_ does _the farmer have a fox?"

Crowley gave him a warning glare.

"And then he wouldn't stop. Started asking why the farmer needs to cross the river in a boat, why doesn't he just walk to the bridge, and I was like _'there is no bridge, Hastur, that's why he needs to use the boat. _' And then he started questioning why the farmer needed to cross the river _at all _, because what's wrong with staying on his own side of the river, and if he needed to move across the river so badly, why didn't he just summon a Demon and sell his soul in exchange for getting rid of the river altogether. Beelzebub thought that was really clever, and said that Hastur 'won' the riddle. I swear to Satan, angel, I was about ready to wring all of their bloody necks."

"So much for team building," the Angel muttered.

"Tell me about it. Oh, and then they made us do this, mmngggk, _weird _trust exercise where we had to… Acchh, it's so convoluted. We had to think back across our entire Demonic existence, right, and pick our best experiences. Then we had to imagine we were about to be _killed _, but that before we _ceased to exist _, we were permitted to relive one of those_nice _memories for thirty seconds. And we had to tell everyone what those thirty seconds would be. What- I mean- Nnnggfffffnnnnnnn- How dark is _that _?"

"We had to do that, too!" Aziraphale chirped. "And yes, it is terribly grim. Positively depressing. And really rather _personal _, I thought..."

"Right!? And I have no idea what any of this has to do with the job. How will Ligur having insight into my 'happiest moments' help us hit our temptation targets? Bloody waste of time is what it is…"

"Blackmail purposes, perhaps?" Aziraphale said, speculatively, and uncharacteristically cynically. Today had really gotten to him.

"Yeah, you're probably onto something there, angel," Crowley said with a frown.

They stood in silence whilst they considered this. Then Crowley took a drag of his cigarette and gazed ponderously at the Angel.

"Which thirty seconds did you pick, then?"

"I'm sorry?" Aziraphale replied, blinking.

"Which thirty seconds? If you were about to die? What moment would you relive?"

Aziraphale cleared his throat. "Well, obviously I just made up something about Heaven and-"

"Yeah, no, not what you told _them _, angel. What would you actually pick?"

_The bookshop. Winter. Evening. Snow falling thick and fast on the street outside, stark against the dark sky, fluttering in the light of the streetlamps. As Aziraphale walks in carrying two mugs of cocoa, Crowley turns his head and looks up at him and just smiles..._

"I don't know, really," Aziraphale lied. "You?"

_Summer. Lazy afternoon. Picnic. Aziraphale's jacket thrown carelessly on the grass, sleeves rolled up, glass of wine in his hand, telling some story or another in his irrepressibly enthusiastic way. The sun warming Crowley's skin. The Angel's unrestrained love for life warming Crowley's soul..._

"Dunno," Crowley replied. "Probably the thirty seconds right before whatever happened to make me get killed. Try and intervene to save myself."

"Is that how it works?"

Crowley shrugged and they stood in silence for a handful of kairotic moments.

"Angel, what do you say to us just pushing off?"

Aziraphale glanced around anxiously.

"Just leaving, you mean?"

"Yeah."

Aziraphale was about to protest, but the words died on his tongue. "...They're doing a _scavenger hunt _next…" He said in a low, scandalised voice.

Crowley dropped his cigarette and ground it into the pavement with his heel.

"Bugger this for a game of soldiers. I'm going to the pub." Crowley sniffed and cast a sideways glance at the Angel. "You coming?"

Aziraphale hesitated for as long as he deemed appropriate for propriety's sake.

"Oh, I should think so."


	6. 6 Husky

Aziraphale smiled to himself as he carefully carried two mugs of mocha over to their table. Crowley was sitting with his chin resting in his hands, and his gaze resting, pensive and soft, out of the wide bay window adjacent to the table. The Angel didn't pause on his way over, but he did perhaps walk a little more slowly, enjoying the opportunity, so rare, to watch the Demon, unnoticed.

"Here we go," Aziraphale said, setting the drinks down. Crowley looked up at him, but he seemed somewhat distracted. His gaze kept drawing back out of the window, at what Aziraphale couldn't quite tell.

"Everything okay, my dear?"

Crowley's head snapped back around to look at the Angel. "Yep! Stellar. What did you order?" Crowley grinned, brightly - far more brightly than he had ever used to, back in the pre-Almost-Armageddon days. Aziraphale's fleeting concerns fled.

Crowley's smile had been getting brighter and brighter over the past few months and years. It made him seem so _young _. It reminded Aziraphale of how the Demon used to be, back when the Earth, or at least the human civilisations scattered across it, were still relatively new. Before the world had slowly ground him down with its wars and its tragedies and its endlessly imaginative new means of torture, and with the role he was frequently expected to play in them. Since they'd cast off the shackles of their respective Sides, they'd both been experiencing a newfound lightness of being. Crowley just seemed so much _happier _, now. Aziraphale hadn't really realised how unhappy the Demon had been, how unhappy they _both _had been, in many ways if not all, until suddenly, and slowly, they weren't anymore. Now when Crowley smiled, he exuded pure sunshine. It was enough to make the Angel feel quite dizzy.

Aziraphale settled himself in his chair and beamed happily at his friend as he answered his question. "_ Well _, for myself I ordered the poached eggs with wilted spinach and hollandaise sauce on a toasted muffin. I was considering the eggs with smoked bacon, but I know you prefer it when I order vegetarian."

"Angel, you can eat what you like, you don't have to-"

"No, no, it's quite alright. I have rather been thinking on what you've said on the matter, and I am finding myself increasingly in agreement with you. I would _like _to eat more vegetarian but…"

"Sushi?"

Aziraphale smiled sadly. "Terrible of me, I know."

"It's not, angel. I don't even want to be vegetarian, it drives me up the wall. But every time I try to eat a nice steak, I just see a sad cow staring back up at me. Excellent appetite killer, that."

"Well, in any case, I went for the spinach rather than the bacon and I am rather looking forward to it. Spinach is a vastly underappreciated vegetable, in my opinion. For you I ordered the avocado toast with lime and black pepper, is that okay, my dear?"

"Yup," Crowley replied. "Sounds good to me."

"After I ordered, though, I did see that young waitress carrying out a plate of rather enticing-looking French toast. Maple, pecan, and black forest fruits I think. It really did look rather scrummy. Only, I'm not sure I'd be able to eat a whole serving of it, on top of the eggs and muffin…"

Aziraphale widened his eyes a little and looked at Crowley, who's mouth twisted into a wry grin. The Demon shook his head, indulgently.

"We can split a plate, if you like."

"Oh!" Aziraphale wiggled happily in his seat.

The Angel was well aware of how much and how frequently Crowley humored his fancies and obliged his technically unasked demands. He would have felt guilty over it, had Crowley not seemed to enjoy indulging him just as much as he enjoyed being indulged. It was a mutually agreeable arrangement, and one that usually resulted in them both getting French Toast, or some metaphorical variant thereof, and so Aziraphale reasoned that it had to be A Good Thing.

Crowley's attention had drifted back to the window once more, and, yet again, he was frowning. It wasn't an angry frown, or a sad frown, though. It wasn't dejected, or annoyed, or baleful. It seemed to Aziraphale to be a frown borne of some confusion, and perhaps a speck of irritation.

"Crowley, my dear, are you sure you are okay?"

Once again, the Demon snapped back to attention with a smile that not only seemed genuine, but, in fact, _was _.

"I'm fine, angel. Great! Have you tried the mocha?"

"I'm not entirely sure I'm going to like it, Crowley…" Aziraphale said, eying the drink as though it were liable to leap out of the mug and slap him in the face at any moment.

"You will! It's like hot chocolate just with a bit more _punch _. You add whiskey to our cocoa at home sometimes, this is sort of the same thing, except in reverse. Caffeine instead of alcohol. Up instead of down. S'good."

Aziraphale made a _hrrrmmmmm _noise, pretending to be unconvinced, but really he was feeling quite endeared by the fact that Crowley was now such an ardent champion of a drink that combined both of their preferred beverages into one. A meaningless thing to remark upon, of course, the Angel knew - Crowley had just developed a bit of a sweet tooth since he'd started staying at the bookshop so frequently. He was just being influenced by Aziraphale's own sugar-filled diet, and so his usual espressos were no longer cutting the mustard. But still, Aziraphale couldn't help but smile at the serendipitous symbolism of the thing.

The waitress brought over their Brunch, and they happily worked their way through it, more slowly than they would had they been alone, thanks to their copious and companionable conversations drifting and meandering through various unconnected topics in a most agreeable fashion. Aziraphale caught the waitress's attention once they had finished, and ordered a serving of the Maple French Toast and a pot of tea, two cups and two sets of cutlery with each.

Aziraphale felt almost perfectly happy. The only thing bothering him was Crowley's periodic zoning out. Every ten or fifteen minutes or so, the Demon's attention would flicker, his gaze would be drawn to the window, and he'd pull a face that became more confused and more irritated each time this strange little ritual repeated itself. Then Aziraphale would say Crowley's name, and the Demon would pull his attention back away from the window, and re-engage with their conversation quite cheerily, as though nothing odd had happened at all.

After the fourth or fifth repetition of this, Aziraphale couldn't take it any more.

"Crowley, what on earth is out there that is winding you up so much?"

"Hm? Crowley blinked innocently at the Angel. "What?"

"You keep looking out of the window!"

"Am I not allowed to look out of the window?"

"You keep looking out of the window _at something _, dear boy. Your attention gets caught by something, you stare at it, you frown, and then you pretend nothing happened."

"I don't-"

"Crowley, you've done it at least five times now. Now please could you tell me what's wrong?!"

Crowley sighed and made an uncomfortable kind of whining noise. "Nnnnn… It's stupid…"

"Dearheart, you can tell me anything, you know that…"

"S'a dog," Crowley blurted out.

"A… what?"

"A dog! Big furry thing that says _woof _! This woman keeps walking it, I think it must be a husky or something, big fluffy thing, she keeps walking it down the road.. Noticed it the first time just because, you know, big fluffy dog, but they _keep walking past _."

"What do you mean, 'keep walking past'?"

"I mean they keep walking past! The woman walked the dog down that side of the street, then ten minutes later, she walks up this side of the street. Fair enough, I thought to myself, they're just coming back the way they came, going home or whatever. But then five minutes later she's walking the dog back down the other side of the road, again. Then another ten minutes or so goes by, and she's back again. And again. And - look! There she is again!"

Aziraphale peered out of the window. There was indeed a woman walking a large dog, possibly a husky, possibly a samoyed, down the street across from the cafe.

"And why exactly is this of such a concern to you Crowley?"

The Demon spun around to look at Aziraphale. "Why does she keep walking her dog up and down the road?" He hissed, a slightly manic tone edging his voice. "It doesn't make sense! There has to be a reason, but _I can't figure it out _!"

"Crowley, my dear, do you think perhaps you have some lingering paranoia after-"

"I'm not paranoid, Aziraphale. I just need to know why that woman is walking her stupid fluffy dog up and down the street every fifteen minutes. It's driving me crazy. There _must _be a _reason _… Ugh! Forcing her stupid husky into my day, ruining our nice brunch, getting in the way of our nice conversation…"

"Why is this bothering you so much? I don't understand, dear boy."

"Because it's- I- she-..." Crowley suddenly pointed out of the window. "Look! She's coming up on this side again. I'm gonna go and ask her."

"What? Crowley, no you can't just-"

Crowley stood up. "I can. I need to know why she keeps walking past! Look, I'll just be a sec..."

"Crowley, please sit down, you are being ridiculous, you can't just walk up to random people in the street and ask them why they are walking their- and he's gone. Wonderful Can't take him anywhere."

Aziraphale sighed. He watched out of the window as Crowley tripped out onto the street and awkwardly accosted the woman and her dog. Aziraphale couldn't make out what they were saying, but the woman seemed to be talking a great deal more than Crowley was. Crowley's head kept bobbing between the dog and the woman. It looked to Aziraphale like he was saying "oh" a lot. And now he was crouching down and scratching the dog's ear, and - oh, oh dear the dog tried to jump up and put its paws on Crowley's shoulders. Aziraphale winced. Animals always seemed far more keen on Crowley than he was on them. Or, at least than he pretended to be anyway.

His dear, incorrigible Demon stood back up and exchanged a few more words with the woman. Then she hugged him, which was certainly unexpected, to the Demon as well as the Angel by the look of it.

Crowley stalked darkly back into the cafe and re-took his seat. He poured himself a cup of tea and sipped it.

Aziraphale stared at him. _"Well _?"

"What?"

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows and put on his best _disappointed but stern schoolteacher _expression.

Crowley groaned. "Ugh. Fine. The answer is, It's not the same dog."

"What?"

"It's not the same dog. The husky. She's got four of them."

Aziraphale frowned and shook his head. "That isn't… Sorry, how is that an explanation for what just happened?"

Crowley sighed and put his teacup back on its saucer with a loud _clink _. "She has four huskies. She wasn't walking the same dog up and down, she was walking different dogs up and down."

"Why was she doing that?"

"She said she can't take them all out at the same time because they pull too hard on the leash. She can't manage them all at once on her own. They used to be able to all go out together when- But- She-..." Crowley fiddled with a teaspoon. "Mmmnnnggm… She said her husband died. A few months back. They used to take the dogs out together, but now she's on her own, and she can't do it by herself. So every day she takes them out, one at a time, to the park down at the end of the road." Crowley sighed. "So that's why. That's the answer. Yay..."

Aziraphale had, at some point, he wasn't sure when, reached out and placed his hand on Crowley's arm.

"Oh. Oh that's just awful. That poor woman. Oh dear me. Was she upset by you asking her about it? And are you alright, dearheart? I know how these things affect you…"

"No, I don't think she was upset. I, uh, I think she was, ngk, happy to have someone to talk to, honestly. It was all a bit awkward…"

"Well, it was very kind of you to comfort the poor lady, dear boy."

"Yyyyyeah… Um..."

"Crowley?"

"So, ngk, the thing is… The thing is, I think I may have volunteered us to walk her dogs with her tomorrow."

"What?"

"Yeah…"

"Why?"

"Look, she was all- And then she was all- And then her dog was all- And then, I don't know how, but the next thing I know I'm agreeing to walk her dogs with her tomorrow. And I said you'd come too."

"Crowley, we were supposed to be going to the Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow. You've been looking forward to it for weeks."

"Yeah I know, I'm sorry, angel... Ngknnnmmmmk I don't really know what happened. It's like some outside force was just… compelling me to get involved with that stupid bloody husky. You can go to the Flower Show without me, it's my fault for being too damned curious. You'd think I'd have learnt by now…"

"Don't be ridiculous, dear boy, of course I'm coming with you." Aziraphale smiled in a way that he knew would be far too affectionate for Crowley's liking, but what did the Demon expect, after behaving like that? "Oh, but you are terribly, terribly sweet, Crowley."

"No, I'm not," Crowley retorted half-heartedly. He huffed and idly forked a piece of french toast and shoved it in his mouth. "I don't even _like _dogs..." he muttered.

Aziraphale smiled wryly, then pouted sympathetically when Crowley glanced at him expectantly.

"Of course not, dear boy."

Well, Demons needed to be indulged sometimes, too.


	7. 7 Enchanted

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, two kingdoms were locked in war. It was a war that dragged across the ages, the incident of its inception lost to the mists of time. It was a war that battled ever onward, fueled by little more than a cycle of vengeance, and hatred, and bitter, blinkered habit. It ebbed and it flowed, it grew hot and it grew cold, but it never died. The war persisted when all else failed - crops, the economy, hope itself. The war outlived them all.

In one of those kingdoms, far far away, far away from the war, and far away from the Royal City, there was an enchanted tower. The tower had no perceivable entrance or exit, only one magical door hidden unless in the presence of a particular magical key. The tower had only a single window, and it had only a single room. In this room, in this tower, in this kingdom beset by war, in a land far, far away, sitting at his window and reading a book of wildly inaccurate and therefore very entertaining prophecies, was a Prince, named Aziraphale.

Not that he knew he was a Prince, of course. He had been placed in the tower when he was just a toddler, by the man who was supposed to protect him, a wizard and Lord Protector of the Realm, named Gabriel. When Aziraphale's mother, the Wise Queen, mysteriously disappeared one day without a trace, Gabriel had seized upon the opportunity to take power for himself. Stealing away the child in the dead of night, the Lord Protector secreted the boy away in an Enchanted Tower, unopenable from within or without except with the use of a magical key, which Gabriel kept with him at all times.

Gabriel now ruled the Kingdom of Annwyn in Prince Aziraphale's stead, having told the Royal Court that the young prince had been eaten by a pack of ravening bears whilst out walking in the forest. Why a two-year old had been out walking in the forest by himself was anyone's guess, but luckily for Gabriel everyone was just too upset to question it. The Kingdom had mourned the loss of their young Prince, but with time so fades sadness. The years passed, and under Lord Gabriel's leadership, the Kingdom had begun to rebuild. The military in particular grew stronger, smarter, and larger with every year that passed. The people found new sorrows with which to replace their sad memories of the young Prince, and soon he was all but forgotten.

Aziraphale knew none of this. Gabriel had told the boy, once he was old enough to understand such things, that he had been found in the woods as a baby, his family having been eaten by a pack of ravening bears (Gabriel was not the most creative of men). He told young Aziraphale that he had saved his life, and brought him to this tower to keep him safe, and to raise him as his own son. Aziraphale knew no other life, and so, despite a lingering feeling that something was not right, he accepted this explanation and the life that it forced upon him. Years turned to decades, and the Forgotten Prince became a man, but he never became free.

This particular morning had begun like every other morning. Aziraphale had woken up, gotten dressed in his usual clothes, brushed his teeth with his usual toothbrush, made a pot of his usual tea in his usual teapot, and drank it from his usual mug. He sat at his desk, as he always did, and read one of his many, many books. It was an unexceptionally unexceptional morning, and Aziraphale was bored.

He would never admit to being bored, of course. Boredom suggested unhappiness, and unhappiness suggested ungratefulness. Aziraphale was not ungrateful. He knew that Gabriel had placed him in this Tower for his own protection. The world Outside was filled with terrifying monsters, and dastardly people, and all kinds of evils and devilry. And furthermore, the Tower within which Aziraphale lived was near the country's border, separated from the wicked and murderous kingdom of Techduinn, with whom the Annwynians were are war, by a treacherous, but still passable, mountain range. In world filled with so much to fear, to feel boredom was to invite _Interesting Times _into your life; a fate to be avoided at all costs.

Furthermore, Aziraphale knew that Gabriel provided well for him - he ensured that he always had books to read and yarn to knit with, pens and paper with which to write his critical analyses and historical essays. Aziraphale had no end of things with which to educate and amuse himself. No, boredom was unacceptable. Boredom led to dreaming, and dreaming led to yearning, and yearning led to hoping and wishing and- No. Aziraphale was not bored. He couldn't let himself be bored. He stared at the book in front of him, reading the same three sentences over and over again.

It was on this particular day, this day of unexceptional unexceptionality, this day where boredom was pulsing like a toothache, that Aziraphale heard a voice calling out from the outside of the Tower.

This was extremely unusual. No one except Gabriel knew of the Tower's location. And no one would stumble accidentally across it - the Tower was in the middle of a deep, dark, desolate forest, on the far outskirts of the Kingdom, bounded on one side by near-impassable mountains, and on the other by swamps and wastelands.

And yet, there was the voice.

And it wasn't Gabriel's.

Aziraphale knew that the voice didn't belong to Gabriel for two reasons. The first reason was that Gabriel _never _announced his presence. He simply arrived, quietly, and let himself in. He never even knocked. This had the effect of leaving Aziraphale feeling constantly anxious, neverquite knowing when Gabriel would appear. Of course, Aziraphale reasoned, Gabriel didn't do this _deliberately _, it was just… Just… Well, Aziraphale was certain that Gabriel had his reasons. He must have.

The second reason that Aziraphale knew that this voice did not belong to Gabriel was that Gabriel would definitely never say:

"_Hello? Hellooooooooo? Is anyone up there? Mmnkggkk I'm just a bit lost, um, so if- … … Of course there is no one up there. What am I thinking? Ruined bloody tower in the middle of a bloody huge forest, in the middle of bloody nowhere, why on earth would anyone be in there? I'm never going to find my way out of this bastarding place, and then- Ouch! Ah! Did you see that?! That thorn pricked me! It lunged at me! Oh, fantastic, so this place is cursed now, too. Just what I need. … What? Don't look at me like that, Bentley. I'm telling you, that plant attacked me! … And I'm talking to the horse again. Ngk."_

No, it was definitely not Gabriel.

Cautiously, Aziraphale edged his way over to the window and peeked out.

On the ground far below him, Aziraphale could see a large black horse, munching on the long grass. Next to the horse, sitting in the long grass, was a person with long red hair wearing a riding-suit of pure black. He was sitting on the ground with his knees bent, and he currently appeared to have his face buried in his arms.

Gabriel had warned Aziraphale about strangers. He had said that everyone was a potential enemy, and that if, by some dark miracle, anyone ever found the Tower, Aziraphale must stay hidden no matter what, and absolutely under no circumstances reveal himself. Gabriel said it was too dangerous.

But this person didn't look dangerous. He looked _sad _. And alone. And very, very lost. Aziraphale knew he shouldn't speak to the man. He _knew _it would be a bad idea. And yet… And yet.

"Um… Hello?" Aziraphale called down. "Are you alright?"

The stranger's head snapped up and his eyes locked onto him. They were alarmingly golden, and as sharp as a hawk's. Aziraphale swallowed.

"_ What _?" He yelped, clearly surprised. "Someone is actually _up there _?" He turned to the horse and said "Told you. Guardian Angel on my side, Bentley, what'd I say?" The horse did nothing.

"Um, are you lost?" Aziraphale called down.

"Yeeeaah... I am, a bit… Can you tell me where I am, exactly, oh Miraculous Angel?"

Aziraphale frowned, set slightly off kilter by the man's unexpected theatrics. He answered him, nevertheless. No need to be impolite, even to strange, melodramatic red-heads who called you _Angel _.

"You're in the Swynol forest. East are the Derfyn mountains, and beyond those you'll find the Kingdom of Techduinn. Probably don't want to go that way."

Uh, yeah. No. Definitely don't. What's West?"

"Travel far enough and you'll hit the capital city of Annwyn. Other than that, I really can't say."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't know?

"You don't know? What do you mean you don't know? You live here, don't you? Where d'you go to, I don't know, buy milk?"

"I don't buy milk."

"Bread then. Beer. Turnips. Whatever. Where's the nearest village?"

"I have no idea! I live _here _. I don't _leave _. Ever. So I really can't help you I'm afraid."

The man made a noise like Aziraphale's tea kettle when he'd left it boiling too long and had forgotten to put the whistle on. "Fat lot of good you are. Obviously the Angel I get sent would be completely and utterly useless..." the man muttered to himself, although not quietly enough for Aziraphale not to hear him. "You really don't ever leave that Tower? Like, never ever?"

"No."

"Right. Bit weird, but okay… You don't have any maps or anything?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Sorry."

"Oh, don't worry about it, Angel. Not your fault."

The man sighed and ran his hand through his hair. Aziraphale wasn't quite sure what to do. He was about to walk away from the window, close the curtains, and hope the man simply went away, when instead the stranger began talking again.

"So, this is where you live, then? In this Tower?"

"Um. Yes.

"Is that any good? Living in a Tower? Awful lot of stairs in a tower. Good view though, I imagine. But not the best location. Not exactly convenient."

"It is very safe..."

"It's in the middle of a cursed forest!"

"It's not cursed, it's enchanted. There's a difference."

"Seems bloody cursed to me. That thorn bush just attacked me!"

"Well, yes, I suppose it is somewhat a question of semantics. It depends on which side you are approaching it from. One man's liberator is another man's oppressor, or something like that. But the forest really is quite -"

Aziraphale stopped, suddenly realising that he was engaging in conversation, real, proper, actual conversation with a complete stranger. Gabriel's words of warning echoed in his ears, and he suddenly felt extremely nervous. "I'm sorry, but who are you, exactly?"

"I'm Crowley."

"Just 'Crowley'?"

"Yep."

"Oh."

"And that's my horse. Her name is Bentley."

"She's very, um, shiny."

"Shiny?"

"I don't know a lot about horses."

Crowley shrugged. "Who are you, then? Other than my evidently incompetent Guardian Angel?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. Who else would I be talking to? That rock?"

"Of course, um," Aziraphale dithered.

He was never any good at lying. He _did _lie, on occasion. For example, when Gabriel asked him how he had managed to use up a month's worth of flour in one week, Aziraphale had told him that he'd dropped it out of the window instead of admitting he'd made crepes for breakfast and supper every day that week. But he wasn't a _good _liar.

But, he reasoned to himself, what harm could there possibly be in simply giving his name? It was just a name. Surely it couldn't do any harm.

"My name is Aziraphale."

"Oh, really? Same as that dead Prince? Bit morbid of your parents. Although I suppose maybe you were born before he, you know-" Crowley made a hissing sound and drew his finger across his throat.

Aziraphale blinked. "Sorry. Dead Prince?"

"Yeah. Your name. Same as the dead Prince."

"What dead Prince?"

"You really are living in a world of your own, aren't you, Angel? _The _Prince. The Prince of Annwyn. Or he was, anyway. Got eaten by a pack of ravening bears, years and years and years ago. Not sure what a two year old was doing in a forest, but I'm not from around here, maybe you are more into free-parenting in this Kingdom, I dunno. Anyway, that dude, the Lord Protector or whatever, the guy in charge now, he reported it, or something. I don't know all the details."

"Pack of ravening…" Aziraphale trailed off, staring into the distance.

"You alright up there?"

Aziraphale blinked. "Um yes. Fine. Fine."

"Right..." Crowley tilted his head. "Don't suppose there is any chance of you inviting me in, is there? I've been travelling for ages, and I'd kill for a cup of tea. Or a glass of wine, that'd be really good. And some food that isn't moldy on the edges."

Aziraphale physically flinched at the request, folding his arms protectively around himself. "Absolutely not!

"Yeah. Didn't think so. Well, I'll just be heading off then. Nice talking to you, Aziraphale. Enjoy your… weird Tower. Come on, Bentley." Crowley untied the knot from the horse's reins and began to walk away.

"Wait!" Aziraphale shouted down, surprising himself.

Crowley turned his head and looked up at him. "What?"

"Um." Aziraphale wasn't actually sure 'what', in all honesty. He just knew that immediately upon Crowley deciding he was about to leave, he was overcome with the feeling that he, Aziraphale, really didn't want him to. Aziraphale didn't know why this was, as surely the no doubt dangerous stranger (he didn't _seem _dangerous, but that was beside the point) leaving was obviously a Good thing. Aziraphale wondered if perhaps he was lonely, but decided he couldn't be, because loneliness, like boredom, was something he couldn't allow himself to feel. Not if he wanted to stay sane.

"Angel?"

"Right. Look. Okay, I can't invite you up here, because for all I know you're some marauding Techduinnan out to skin me alive or whatever it is they do, or a murderous serial killer who wants to steal all of my-" Aziraphale cut himself off and shook his head. "What I mean to say is that I can't let you in, but I could, um, I could send you down something to eat, if you like. You look like you need it. More than I do, anyway."

Crowley stared up at Aziraphale, wearing a strange and soft expression that wasn't quite a smile, but was almost. "Oh. Yeah. No. Yeah. That'd be- Are you sure?"

"I'd hate for you to go hungry when I have more than enough up here.I could tie some blankets together, use them to lower things down to you. If you like."

"You'd do that?" Crowley asked, voice filled with a strange mix of awe, scepticism, and hope. "Even though you think I might be a Techduinnan marauder?"

"Well, even marauders get hungry, I imagine." Aziraphale replied.

Crowley did smile then. It lit up his face like sunlight breaking through clouds, although Aziraphale refused to let himself acknowledge that, of course.

"Yeah. Great. Brilliant. That'd be- Yeah. Thanks."

And so Aziraphale tied together some sheets and scarves and other scraps of material he had lying around, and used them to gently lower food and drink down to the stranger on the ground. He had been a little anxious that Crowley might have taken the food and run, but he didn't do that. Instead he sat back down on the ground, and talked with Aziraphale as he ate.

In fact, he remained even after he had finished eating, and they continued talking long into the night. They talked of books, and of philosophy, of the world outside the forest, of their interests, of almost everything. Crowley didn't discuss who he was or where he'd come from, though, and Aziraphale was too polite to ask.

Eventually the day turned to night, as days are wont to do, and Crowley, to Aziraphale's delight (not that he would admit it), said that he may as well camp down in the clearing beneath the tower for the night. Said it was as good as any place else, barring of course the cursed thorn bushes. Aziraphale then bid him good evening and took himself off to bed, carrying a strange and unusual lightness in his heart.

The next morning, Crowley was indeed still there. He slept until quite late, far later than Aziraphale, who found himself getting quite impatient for the strange man to wake up. When Crowley did finally rise, they spent most of the day talking.

Aziraphale found, to his great surprise, that they had a lot in common. True, they disagreed on most things, but it was a good kind of disagreement. When Aziraphale disagreed with Gabriel, it was a closed off sort of thing. It was a disagreement that disengaged, that shut down, that brooked no dissent. With Crowley, points of disagreement were leaping off points for deeper and more interesting conversation. Aziraphale could _argue _with Crowley, and he would argue back. It was infuriating. It was irritating. It was _wonderful _.

The next day, Crowley, who was showing no indication of planning to move on any time soon, left his little camp to explore the surrounding area more closely. When he returned he told Aziraphale that, actually, for a desolate and possibly cursed forest, the place was actually pretty nice. He'd found a small river with extremely clean water, and several different types of fruit trees growing around the place, as well as plenty of edible plants, and enough dry wood to make fires for weeks if necessary. It seemed that he was planning on staying, at least for a while.

And stay he did. Days turned into weeks, and Crowley still hadn't left his camp beneath the Tower.

Aziraphale was feeling deeply conflicted about this. If Gabriel showed up unannounced, as he tended to, he would be furious. He would be more than furious. In the past, Aziraphale had always believed that, deep down, Gabriel really did have his best interests at heart, and that he really was a good person. But now he was beginning to question that assumption, now that he had spent time with a person whom he'd come to realise was _truly _good.

Aziraphale kept thinking about the time Gabriel had gotten angry when because he had befriended a wild bird and taught it to say his name. Gabriel had said he was 'compromising his security'. When Gabriel had found out about the bird, the bird had never come back.

But still, Aziraphale truly didn't want Crowley to leave. In fact the very thought of it, the thought of not being able to talk to Crowley every day, of perhaps never seeing him again, made him feel quite ill.

Yes, Aziraphale was conflicted. He wanted Crowley to be safe, but he also wanted him to be here, with him, as his _friend _. Aziraphale wasn't sure that these two things could exist simultaneously.

Eventually his anxieties and his stress and his guilt over these warring wants became too much. Aziraphale decided that he needed to talk to Crowley. He decided that he needed to ask him to leave. He didn't want to, but he couldn't in good conscience do anything else. The fact of the matter was that he'd come to care a great deal for his new and unexpected friend. He cared enough to give him up in order to keep him safe.

Crowley had been out riding with Bentley all afternoon. He returned in the early evening, tired but happy, and with a bag full of apples.

"I'm back, angel" Crowley called out as he rode back into the clearing. "I brought you back a tonne of apples. You like apples, right? Well, if you don't Bentley and I will get through them, I'm sure."

"Oh, thank you dear boy. Most thoughtful of you." Aziraphale swallowed. His mouth was dry. "Um, when you have a minute, I, uh, I have something I really rather need to talk to you about."

"Oh yeah?" Crowley said breezily, swinging himself down off of Bentley and tripping along to the walls of the Tower. He tied the bag of apples onto the make-shift rope that still hung from Aziraphale's window.

"Yes," Aziraphale replied, trying to steel his resolve. "Um, look, Crowley. Um. The thing is, I've been doing some thinking, and I-... Well, you see, the thing is-, I- I really think it's about time you left. Moved on. Went away. Um."

Crowley froze. "Leave?" He said, so quietly that Aziraphale could only just hear him.

"Yes. I do rather think that that would be for the best."

Crowley shook his head and rubbed his forehead. "Uh. Yeah. No. Um. Yeah. Of course. I mean. Can I ask why, or...? I mean I thought we were- But I mean- I-..." He trailed off, sounding so dejected that Aziraphale felt as though his heart might actually break.

"It's simply not _safe _for you here, dear boy. If Gabriel finds you he'll be very unhappy. He's not someone you want to anger. He's an extremely powerful wizard, Crowley. I don't want you getting hurt, or, or-"

Crowley audibly exhaled. It sounded to Aziraphale like a sigh of relief. "That's why you want me to leave, angel?"

"Of course. And you should. We've been unimaginably lucky that Gabriel hasn't shown up already, we really mustn't tempt fate, Crowley."

Crowley made an unintelligible dismissive noise and waved his hands. "I can handle myself, Aziraphale."

"Not against Gabriel, Crowley. You don't understand, he- No. You have got to leave. And I'm- I'm not going to talk to you anymore. So you need to just leave, Crowley. There is nothing for you here."

Crowley stared up at Aziraphale for what felt like an eternity, but couldn't have been longer than about 15 seconds. "You really want me to leave?"

"I-... Yes," Aziraphale said hollowly.

Crowley stared up at Aziraphale's window for a few moments more, and then shut his mouth and nodded. "Right. Fine then."

"Good."

"Well. Bye then," Crowley said, voice laced with venom.

With one last look down at his friend, his only friend, his dear, dear, wonderful friend, Aziraphale closed the window and bolted the storm shutters.

The next morning, Crowley was gone.

TO BE CONTINUED…... _{dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuun!}_


	8. 8 Frail

They were sitting in the Bookshop. Aziraphale was pleased to notice - and he had been noticing, keeping an ever-vigilant eye on his Demon's emotional wellbeing, as someone had to and Crowley certainly wasn't - that Crowley was finally seeming to relax more. After the fire, the Demon had always been on edge in the shop, sometimes even bordering on panic. But, finally, almost a year after Everything, he was settling down again.

_Everything _was settling down again. That wasn't to say that things had been fixed, far from it - Aziraphale didn't expect anything to ever be "fixed". But then again, he wasn't sure he particularly _wanted _it to be, not if fixed meant returning to how things were before. That was the last thing he wanted, the last thing either of them wanted. They'd put up with scars, if they were the price of this new-found freedom.

It was quiet. Aziraphale was reading, or, at least he was staring at a book. Crowley was sitting on the settee and drinking coffee, occasionally jabbing at his phone but mostly staring into space. They both did a lot more of that, these days, just sitting and thinking about things.

And Aziraphale _had _been thinking.

He'd been thinking about Crowley, and he'd been thinking about himself, and he'd been thinking about Heaven, and he'd been thinking about Hell. He'd been thinking about the nature of rebellion, and the motivations behind alliances. He'd been thinking about action and authority, and power and perception, and frailty and faith.

He'd been thinking about what it meant to Fall.

Crowley had never really spoken about it, not really. Flippantly, perhaps, or through vague and disconcerting allusions, but they'd never really discussed it. Aziraphale had never asked. How could he have, before? Back when he was still so wilfully blinded - and he had been _wilfully _blind, he could see that now. Back when he had insisted on trying to see Crowley as just another demon, another one of Lucifer's Fallen, no different from the rest of them. Socially, and personally, yes, Aziraphale had never been able to convince himself that Crowley wasn't different, wasn't special, when he so self-evidently was. But philosophically? Ideologically? No. He'd always been so determined to see Crowley as bred of the same ilk. It hadn't always been easy, but Aziraphale was a champion when it came to denial. He hadn't asked in order that he would never have to admit the things he already knew.

Things were different now. Now that Aziraphale was himself, at least in the eyes of Heaven, a rebel, too. He didn't know whether or not that made him Fallen. He didn't feel Fallen, but, then, he didn't know what _Fallen _felt like. But he did know that he now saw Heaven in a very different light. He saw faith in a different light, and authority, and life, the universe, and everything. He saw things in a way that was far more complicated and far less black and white than it had been before.

Yes. Aziraphale had been thinking about what it meant to Fall.

"Crowley?"

The Demon blinked out of his reverie and looked over to the Angel.

"Mm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, shoot."

"You're not like other Demons."

Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Pretty sure that isn't a question, angel."

"No. Yes. I know. That's not the question."

"O...kay?" Crowley said, inclining his head quizzically.

"And, well, I don't think that Hell is all that different from Heaven. Practically speaking."

"Hot take."

"What?"

"Sorry. Nothing. That still isn't a question, though.."

"No, I know. I'm getting to it, give me chance, Crowley."

"Okay, jeez."

"Well, the thing is… Um, well. The thing is, you aren't like other Demons. And you certainly aren't like any Angels I know - a point to your credit, I might add - and so, I suppose I've just been wondering, um… What _happened? _"

"What do you mean what happened? What happened when? Ever? Well, you see, _In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth- _"

"Skip ahead a few chapters."

"...Ah."

Crowley went quiet, and his demeanour grew closed off.

"You know what happened. You were there, weren't you?"

"I know what I saw happen. I know what we, what the Angels who stayed loyal to heaven, what we were told happened. But I've never heard what happened to_ you _, Crowley. Because you aren't like them, you aren't like any of them. And really, I don't think that I am, either. Not anymore. I'm not sure if I ever was. I think you and I have always been closer to each other than to any of them. Not just personally, but…" Aziraphale trailed off, shaking his head, suddenly feeling as though he were not only out on a limb, but sawing it off beneath himself. "I shouldn't have brought it up, I'm sorry. Ignore me, my dear. I'm a foolish old Angel asking questions he shouldn't."

Crowley stared at Aziraphale for slightly longer than was comfortable, his eyes narrowed, and his jaw hard-set.

"There aren't any questions that shouldn't be asked," he finally said, voice low. "S'the point of questions. That's- …"

"You don't have to talk about this, Crowley, not if you don't want to."

"I-... No. It's okay. I just haven't really spoken about it to, well, _anyone _."

"Not ever?"

"Mmm. Well, not really. Not... " Crowley sighed. "What do you want to know?"

"The truth, I suppose."

Crowley laughed bitterly. "Yeah, welcome to the club, angel."

"I just can't marry it up, Crowley. Hell is every bit as authoritarian as Heaven. Beelzebub brooks dissent no more gladly than Gabriel does. What made you choose them over Heaven?"

"What made you choose Heaven over them?"

Aziraphale thought for a moment. "It was easier."

Crowley looked surprised at that answer, although Aziraphale wasn't sure why. He felt that that was fairly obvious. But Crowley clearly required further elaboration.

"I think that siding with Heaven simply meant that nothing had to change. I could just carry on believing what I had always believed. I could side with Heaven without having to _think_about any of it. I didn't want to think about any of it. So I didn't. It was just… easier. Safer, perhaps."

Crowley didn't say anything. Aziraphale began to worry that he'd said something wrong. But it was true, so if he'd said something wrong, that just meant that he _was _'something wrong'. He wasn't sure whether that made him feel better or worse.

"S'very honest of you," Crowley eventually said.

"Well, not much point in lying to myself. Not anymore. Or to you. We're all a bit beyond that, now, really."

"Guess so."

Aziraphale twisted his angel-wings ring. Crowley kept staring at him. Staring _through _him. It didn't make the Angel feel uncomfortable, exactly, but it made him feel less than at ease.

"I asked questions," Crowley said out of nowhere. "That's- That's what happened. That's why I had to join the Rebels."

Aziraphale drew his eyebrows together and tilted his head. "That's all?"

"Yeah."

"That can't be all."

"Why not?"

"Because, well, because- Well, what's so wrong with asking questions?"

"You didn't."

"Well, no, but-"

"Did _any _of them? The Angels? The ones who didn't Rebel? Did any of them ever question anything, ever? God, or the authority of the Archangels, the Plan?"

"Well, no, not to my knowledge but-"

"There you go."

Aziraphale frowned. "But that isn't what happened with Lucifer. He wanted power for himself. The other Rebels, and the Demons they became, they want to _win _. To subjugate Heaven, to outmaneuver _God _. It's all- It's all a- a sort of a power-play. Just the same as Heaven, only on the opposite side…"

"Yeah, it is now, angel. That's what it became. But it was just questions that started the whole thing. That's all Lucifer did, at the start. I mean, his motivations were probably not particularly, you know, _wholesome _, but he didn't _do _anything. Not at the start. All he did was ask questions. That was what triggered it all. All of it. I mean, yeah, it got-… Later, it-… But- Ngk…"

He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose.

"Crowley, you don't have to talk about this."

"No. No. It's fine. I'm fine. It's-" Crowley took a breath. "In the beginning, back when it all started going wrong, or, at least, when it all started to change, anyway, I asked a lot of questions. Not even, you know, existential ones, or anything like that, just your regular run of the mill questions. What other Angels were working on, what they thought of this part of Creation or that part of Creation, why the Almighty had chosen _blue _for the colour of the sky... Why things were the way they were. But I wasn't- Ngk- I wasn't trying to be- I just wanted to _know._

But that wasn't allowed, apparently. I- They didn't want me to ask, they didn't want to answer, they just wanted me to shut up. They treated me like a _troublemaker _. Which I wasn't, not then. Or at least I didn't intend to be. And-" Crowley sighed. "Look, Aziraphale, whatever you think I am now, I wasn't always like that. Like _this _, whatever it is that I am now. I wasn't- I was _angry _. The Archangels were so supercilious and condescending and defensive... I hated them. I'd only wanted to learn, to _know _, I-" He flinched, and closed his eyes, and swallowed.

"When I joined with Lucifer and his army, I _agreed _with them, Aziraphale. I saw Heaven as corrupt, and weak, and, and, and just _wrong _. Well, I still do, but back then it was _different_. I was- I don't know. I thought we could _change _things. I thought we were the only ones who _could_. They were so, so, so, their faith, their _authority _, it was all so frail that the littlest question could fracture it. Little tiny hairline fractures that would build and build and build, because it would never stop at _on _e _question _, never stay with only _one Angel _, and then eventually the whole thing would just _shatter _. And they _knew _that. That's what got to me. They _knew _that's what would happen, and that's why they were so against it. That's why they stepped on anyone who asked anything. Ground them down until they stopped asking. Until they just, ngk, fell into line. Not me. I wasn't going to let that be me, not ever."

Crowley glared, not at Aziraphale, but at the universe at large. His posture stayed relaxed, but Aziraphale could see his fingernails digging into the arm of the sofa.

"I believed in the cause. Even when it got, ngk, when it- Look, I know things got bad. Really bad. And personally I never wanted it to get that far, I- But we were forced into a corner. They were _killing _us. What were we meant to do? They threw the first stone when all we did was speak. _They _threw the first stone. We just... We just threw back."

"We were told that you started the fighting," Aziraphale said, the lightness in his voice directly correlating to the heaviness in his heart.

Crowley shrugged.

"Maybe we did. Point is, we didn't _believe _we did. I didn't believe we did. 'Cos it was easier not to question it." He laughed, hollowly. "I was so wrapped up in the fight for knowledge and freedom that I didn't, ngk- But I- But none of us did- But I should have- I didn't question anyone who mmmnkkk who said what I wanted to hear. Didn't question _myself _. We let Lucifer become what he became, because we thought we'd get what we wanted out of it.

But he wasn't any different. That's why Hell ended up like it did. Heaven 2., only with shittier architecture and a worse grasp of technology. Every bit as tyrannical, every bit as authoritarian, every bit as intolerant of questioning...

"Bit late by then, though. By the time I let myself see what was really happening, which, sidenote, was _much _later than it should have been, everything had already happened. There wasn't anything I could do. Not that I could have really done anything ever, even if I had seen it in time. Heaven sucked just as badly. At least Hell had better career prospects. I was stuck in that camp, so I tried to, ngk, make the best of it. Tried to make it work for me, instead of me working for _them _. Tried to, ngk, tried not to _hurt _anybody. Tried to just, ngk, just- just let the humans see that they had _choice _. That they had choices _we never had _. Didn't really work, most of the time. S'why I slept so much, I think."

Aziraphale wasn't sure what he could say to that.

"Dunno if that answers your question, angel."

"I'm sorry," Aziraphale replied.

"What for?"

"I don't know," Aziraphale said, honestly. "For all of it, I suppose."

"Yeah. Me too."

The Angel stared at the Demon sitting across from him. The vulnerable, intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate, principled Demon. And he suddenly realised that he was wrong.

"No, actually, you know what, I'm _not _sorry, Crowley. Or, at least, I can't _regret _that any of it happened, which is what 'sorry' tends to imply. Because for what it's worth, I am _proud_to be on your Side. _Our _Side. If it weren't for all of, all of, _everything _, then there may not have _been _an 'Our Side' to be on in the first place, and there's nowhere better I can think to be. If that means I'm _Fallen _, or… Well so be it. Because if all of this was Her plan, Great, or Ineffable, and if we really are headed toward Heaven and Hell versus Humanity, if that's how it was always going to be, well- I would rather Fall with you than stand with them. You were _right _to question them, Crowley."

Crowley's mouth hung open for a few seconds, before he snapped it shut and nodded, dazedly.

"Oh. Right then. Ngk. Yep."

A moment, golden and fragile, danced in the air between them, singing through the silence. There was so much more to say, so much more to pull apart and untangle and understand. So many more questions to be asked.

But not right now. One day. Many days. Every day, for as long as they had days left. Aziraphale had finally swallowed his piece of the apple, bitten so, so long ago, and now he had a taste for it. Now he needed to_ know _, and he was no longer afraid of the answers. Or, at least, not so afraid that he would rather not ask. He had an awful lot to figure out. Perhaps, he thought, they both did.

But not right now.

"Shall we go upstairs and watch _Golden Girls _?" Aziraphale asked.

"Yeah," Crowley smiled. "Sounds good."


	9. 9 Swing

Four weeks after the Angel had given him the tartan flask, Crowley found himself back in Soho.

He lived in the city, after all, so he reasoned why shouldn't he be in Soho? Soho was _the _place to be if you were very hip, very cool, and just a little bit dangerous. Which Crowley obviously was. He had an _image _to uphold. Needed to stay decked out in the sharpest threads or he'd get a rep for being square, and he couldn't have _that _. _Lady Jane _was there, and _I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet, _and _Foale and Tuffin _, all the best boutiques selling all the trendiest fashions. And, plus, Soho was a real modern day den of iniquity, packed to the brim with sin and temptation and musicians and the edgier sort of socialites. Natural environment for a Demon. Best place for him to be.

So yes, actually, there were _loads _of reasons for Crowley to be in Soho. In fact, he told himself, it was weirder that he'd been away from Soho for those four weeks. Who knew what kind of opportunities for mischief he had missed in by staying holed up in his Mayfair flat for a month, listening to _The Velvet Underground & Nico _on repeat and being self-indulgently maudlin about everything. Not that he had been doing that, of course. But hypothetically speaking.

It definitely wasn't unusual for him to be in Soho right now. Loads of reasons to be in Soho. Soho was absolutely packed full to the brim with reasons for a very cool, very hip, just a little bit dangerous Demon to be there.

Crowley found himself standing outside of Aziraphale's bookshop.

He was finding it a little bit harder to think of reasons for him to be standing right here, right now. The best he had come up with was that Aziraphale's bookshop was situated directly opposite a particularly unassuming strip club with a conveniently no-questions-asked approach to renting out their back rooms for anyone who wanted an off-the-record meeting place for cartel meetings, money laundering schemes, or to set up heists for robbing churches. For example.

Unfortunately, Crowley wasn't currently engaged in anything like that, and he didn't have any rooms booked anywhere, and he really didn't have any acceptable reason for pacing back and forth outside of the incongruously upstanding Rare Books Dealership; possibly the only place in all of Soho that wasn't in some way demonic.

He was still pacing and trying to think up some excuse for walking into the shop, some reason to go and see the Angel that wouldn't spook him or be _going too fast, _when the door opened and Aziraphale's head poked out.

"Dear boy, you have been hovering out here for almost thirty minutes. You are drawing attention to yourself. Might I recommend that you come inside and indulge your theatrical indecision somewhere you are less likely to be observed?"

Crowley snapped his mouth shut.

"Uhmmmmnnkkkksshhhfffffnnngk," he said.

"I think we're a bit past all that, don't you?"

Crowley's head bobbed and weaved. He'd chosen a side to be on. Chosen to choose*.

"Come _on _, Crowley, do hurry up."

Being ordered by the Angel to come into his Bookshop was a fairly acceptable reason for going into the Bookshop, Crowley supposed. Acceptable enough to Crowley, anyway. More than acceptable, actually. Better than any reason he could have thought up.

"Ngk. Right. Yeah. Um. Groovy. I'll just- Yeah. Right on."

"You sound like a teenager," Aziraphale said derisively as he stepped out onto the street and took hold of the 6,000 year old demon's arm to pull him into the shop.

"And you look like Noel Coward with that cravat**."

"Oh. Don't you like it?"

"Well, I didn't say that. It's- ngk- No, I mean it's- It looks- Just _different. _Rakish. It's- I mean- No, yeah, I dig it."

"Please stop talking like that."

"No, look, this is how humans talk now, angel. You wouldn't understand."

"I _don't _understand, that's the point, Crowley. I don't know why you always -"

The door to the bookshop closed, and Soho carried on swinging.


	10. 10 Pattern

"Rrrrrright," Mr Anthony Harrison said, rolling his Rs theatrically whilst leaning back on his desk. "This afternoon we'll be continuing with last weeks topic on _Themes And Patterns In History _. Get out your workbook, kid. If we get through this quickly we can spend the last half hour watching _Horrible Histories _."

"Not that we want to _rush _, of course," Mr Ezra Cortese chipped in with a disapproving glance at his colleague. "This is a very important topic, Warlock my lad. Understanding themes and patterns in history is not only important for the study of history in itself, but will help provide you with a strong foundational basis with which to analyse and approach the wider world. Something I'm not certain ' _Horrible Histories _' will equip you with…"

Mr Harrison smirked. "Yeah, but it does have excellent musical numbers."

Warlock rolled his eyes and pulled out his History workbook, dropping it on his desk with a thud.

"Okay, Warlock my boy, what can you tell me about Julius Caesar?" Mr Cortese asked.

Warlock shrugged.

"Ach, come on, kid, we covered this last week," Mr Harrison complained. "Anything. Give me anything you know about Julius Caesar."

"He's dead," Warlock answered unenthusiastically.

Mr Harrison and Mr Cortese shared a Look.

It wasn't that Warlock was an unintelligent child. Quite the contrary, he was extremely bright and quick-witted, he simply refused to engage with anything he didn't feel like engaging with. And, to both Mr Harrison and Mr Cortese's frustration, History was one such subject they had been utterly unable to persuade Warlock to take an interest in. Same with Philosophy and Religious Studies. They'd had limited success with English, but only by letting Warlock read Spiderman comics instead of Shakespeare.

Art and Music didn't hold much appeal to the boy either, but he wouldn't put up too much of a fight if they just let him paint for the afternoon, or play on his bass guitar. As neither tutor had any interest whatsoever in Physical Education, they usually just took Warlock to the nearest skate park once a week so that he could practice tricks on his BMX when the teenagers who normally haunted the place were all at school. Mr Harrison and Mr Cortese would sit and share a flask of coffee on one of the benches, involving themselves in lengthy and often spirited debates with one another, and paying absolutely no attention to their tutee, which suited Warlock down to the ground.

Warlock's favourite academic subjects, in so far as he enjoyed any of them, were maths and chemistry. He liked maths and chemistry because they had right answers and wrong answers. You couldn't talk your way into 2+2=5, because 2+2 simply did _not _equal 5, and it never would, no matter how much you argued that it should. It didn't matter whether the world would be better and filled with more goodness if 5 were to be the sum of 2 and 2, or if you thought that 4 deserved to be ground under your heel and destroyed for all eternity, 2+2 would never = 5, and that was the end of it. Warlock was getting quite interested in computer programming for the same reason . Mr Harrison and Mr Cortese weren't quite sure what to do about any of this.

"Yes, that is quite correct, Julius Caesar is dead," Mr Cortese said, voice dripping with desperate positivity. "And can you remember when he died?"

"No."

"D'you remember what he died _of _?" Mr Harrison asked.

"No."

"Right."

Mr Harrison sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, slightly dislodging his ever-present dark-tinted glasses. Mr Cortese side-eyed his colleague, surreptitiously looking him up and down, before stepping in and taking his turn in the brutal tag-team match that was _Trying To Get Warlock To Engage In Class_.

"Warlock, lad, I can't help but get the impression that you aren't particularly _excited _by studying the history of the Roman Empire…"

"M'not," the boy said, sullenly. "S'boring."

"Julius Caesar established an empire and political system which shaped the course of Western history, Warlock! His actions became the catalyst for an almost unprecedented era of prosperity and peace! How can that be _boring_?"

"Uh…" Mr Harrison put down his coffee mug and tilted his head "I wouldn't exactly call the Roman Empire _peaceful, _ange- erm, Ezra. Rome conquered and enslaved most of Europe, North Africa, and a hefty chunk of the Near East. Not quite _spreading peace_, is it?"

"That's a rather simplistic view, dear boy. The Empire instigated a period of prosperity not seen again until the _Industrial Revolution _. A coherent set of laws, relatively comprehensive citizenship rights, and indoor plumbing became ubiquitous from Britannia to the Levant. Within the borders of the Empire war became virtually non-existent!"

"Yeah, and slavery, gladiatorial combat, seriously gruesome death penalties, they got pretty _ubiquitous _too, not to mention conscription, proscription, religious intolerance, oppression of minorities and non-conformists, debilitating taxes, endless and futile attempts at military expansions…" He paused and bobbed his head from side to side. "I'll give you the plumbing, though. That was pretty good."

"Humans are fallible, obviously," Mr Cortese rejoined with some spirit, "but it is self-evident that the Roman Empire was, on the whole, a force for Good rather than for Evil."

"Your side always wants to take credit for all of the showy stuff. The Roman Empire was _clearly _a Bad Thing. It's not 'self-evident' that it was Good. People only say things are 'self-evident' when they don't have any actual evidence."

"My dear boy, I dined with _Marcus Aurelius _. I _proof-read _for _Eusebius _. If it's evidence you want, I can _inundate _you with it. I simply didn't want to humiliate you by proving you so comprehensively incorrect."

"Hah!"

Warlock pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened up Pokemon Go. They'd fight about this for the rest of the afternoon, if he was lucky. Mr Harrison and Mr Cortese just couldn't seem to help themselves; they always argued about _everything _. Warlock was pretty sure they enjoyed it. History lessons always went the same way. And philosophy lessons, and religious studies, and English Literature… The only _Themes and Patterns _Warlock had learnt from them about History was the pattern of Mr Harrison and Mr Cortese getting into some stupid debate about something, and the theme of them pretending to hate each other when they were _clearly _totally best friends.

Warlock didn't understand adults. They were so _stupid _. But if that meant he didn't have to read Cicero and could just sit and level up his shiny Magikarp all afternoon, he wasn't about to complain.


	11. 11 Snow

It all started when Tommy Friar was found, dead, in a back alley in Mayfair. In _my territory _.

Well, that wasn't when it _all _started, but I don't really feel like dragging you through my entire sordid backstory. The tale of the cop turned con is as old as it is ugly, and as filled with alcohol and self-pity as a dive bar next to a two-bit AA meeting hall ten minutes before closing. All you need to know about me is that my name is Anthony J. Crowley, and I was done with this shit before it even started.

Tommy Friar was fourteen years old when he was murdered.

I'm no stranger to the London Underworld. I've been involved in some shady business in my time, and I've been on the wrong side of the law for more years than I worked to uphold it. But even a crook's gotta have morals. Killing kids? That's where I drew the line.

I don't work with cops, as a rule. Did enough of that, back in the day, back before my catastrophic fall from grace. I slipped through the cracks in the System as easily as nails down a chalkboard, and free-dived straight down into the mercenary world of the London ganglands. I found my niche, down there in the darkness, in the darkness that matched the blackness of my soul, and for over a decade I was the_ Man In Black _, eluding the _Boys In Blue _like a shadow eludes the sun.

But then Tommy was killed with all the markings of a gangland wasting, and none of my usual contacts were talking. With the little information I could piece together and the information conspicuous by its absence, everything began to point towards this being _big. _Bigger than the two-bit criminals that lurked around my usual haunts. This went to the_top _.

The only fact I had for certain was that all of this was somehow connected to a cocaine racket that ran out of the West End. Even in that I was severely lacking in details - I had no firm names, no firm places, only nervous rumor and pregnant silences. And whilst the connection to coke pushers was unequivocal, it somehow felt _more _than that, in a way I couldn't put my finger on. But after years as a copper, and more years as a criminal, I'd learned to trust my nose. The footprints in this snow lead far beyond your run-of-the-mill drug mules. My usual contacts wouldn't talk, and when they did they did so in hushed whispers. Every lead went cold, every path had been swept. Awful lot of effort just for the sake of taking out one teenage boy.

Something big was going on, and I'd be damned if I didn't figure out what.

But my problem was that I had exhausted all of my investigative avenues, and two weeks into my relentless digging, I was barely any closer to finding the truth.

Well, that wasn't quite true. I hasn't exhausted every avenue. I did have one path left open to me, it was just one that I swore I'd never take. But I owed it to Tommy. And if this went as far as I thought it did, I owed it to the bastards playing with the lives of the _little people _on the ground like they were nothing more than expendable pawns in their fucked-up game of chess. Taking this path wouldn't be easy, and it wouldn't be pretty, and it could sure as hell end up with me left in the shit, but I figured I was already living on borrowed time.

And so, against my better judgement, I looked to the cops. I knew my only chance at vengeance, at justice for Tommy, would be by getting a contact on the inside,finding a way to pool our knowledge and synchronise our sources. At least until I had enough information to strike out on my own. Until I had positioned the pieces to ensure a swift and merciless checkmate against whoever thought they could hurt a child on my patch. Until I was ready to go rogue, once again.

That had been the plan, anyway.

But then I met the Angel.

And then everything had gotten real big, real fast.

Two weeks and four days after Tommy's murder, I made my move to make contact with a cop. Finding the right cop was essential - anyone too high up would never trust me and could never be trusted, anyone too low down wouldn't be able to give me what I needed. Anyone too loyal to the Force would betray me, anyone disloyal… Well, if office politics were anything like how they were back when I walked the Beat, anyone disloyal simply wouldn't be there anymore.

I soon singled out the perfect ally. A new cop, at least by the Met's standards. Transferred in a year ago from some rural placement, and immediately placed in a mid-ranking role on the ground, neither auspicious nor derisive, exceptional nor usual, and in the time he had been there he'd not been singled out for particular praise or particular criticism - at least not so far as my cursory investigation so far suggested. He was a man who kept his head, and kept his place. Competent but unremarkable. Clever but unnoticed. A heart for justice, and a head for keeping a low profile. He was just what I needed, and better still, he had been assigned to the Friars murder case.

His name was Detective Ezra Fell, but he was known on the street as _The Angel _.

It was a Wednesday evening, and Detective Fell had clocked out dead on 20:00. It was raining, and I had been waiting outside the station for an hour. I followed The Angel in my car - a vintage Bentley, and the only thing in my life I truly loved- as he hailed a taxi and headed across town. It pulled up in Soho, and The Angel got out and spilled into an unassuming little bar on the corner. It was called _The Bookshop _.

I followed him in.

I waited until he had ordered his drink before standing next to him at the bar. I'm a criminal, not a monster, and this dude was going to need a strong drink or six by the time I'd finished talking with him. I knew I had to approach this carefully. He'd know who I was - my reputation would, naturally, proceed me - and if I wanted to gain his trust I'd have to choose my words carefully. I didn't expect that he would be at all willing to talk to me, and part of me knew that as last ditch efforts went, this could well leave me lying face up in one. Talking to cops? That'd catch me hell from both sides, Police and Criminals alike. But I'd never been one for taking the safe option. If Detective Fell arrested me on the spot, so be it. And at least I'd go down fighting.

"I hear your investigation into the Friars case has been going down like a lead balloon," I said, leaning over my drink and watching the Detective from the corner of my eye.

"Yes, it has, rather."

"The police don't seem to be trying particularly hard to get to the bottom of it, if you ask me. Seems like you're the only man on the job taking it at all seriously, Detective Fell."

"Yes, well, budget cuts and- I'm sorry, but do I know you?"

"I expect so."

The man turned and stared at me for a few moments, his trained investigative eye taking in all of my features as I tilted my chin up, brazen and bold in the face of the law.

"I'm so sorry dear fellow, I can't quite seem to place you. What did you say your name was?"

Well. Maybe they didn't hand out _Wanted _posters with photographs on any more. Probably a breach of GDPR or some bullshit like that. No matter. The _name _, that was the thing. The pivotal point lay before me, the smoky air of the dimly lit bar heavy with the weight of the kairotic moment which would prove make or break in my quest for vengeance. Would Detective Fell hear me out, intrigued by what possible force could bring me out of hiding? Or would he prove himself a lesser man by seizing his opportunity to try and capture one of London's most wanted?

"The name's Crowley. Anthony J. Crowley."

The Angel narrowed his eyes, his mouth set in a hard line.

"Anthony J. Crowley?"

"The one and only."

He froze for a handful of moments more, and then shook his head apologetically. "Oh, I'm awfully sorry, doesn't ring any bells, I'm afraid. Have we met?"

"I-You- Ngk. You don't know who I am?"

"Oh, please don't take it personally old chap. My head's so full of this case at the moment, I'll be forgetting my own name before long. I'm sure it'll come to me. Are you with the police, or?"

I have to admit, this threw me. My usual icy cool and debonair charm began to fail me. My plan had hinged on convincing the man that working with the infamous Anthony Crowley would be worth the risk inherent, that only together would we stand a chance of getting justice for young Tommy and getting to the heart of this tangled web. That plan sort of fell on its arse if the man had no idea who I even was. I bet this never happened to James bloody Bond.

"I'm- But- You- I- Ngk."

The man smiled patiently as I stumbled over my words. Perhaps this plan was salvagable. I _was _Anthony Crowley after all; clever, cool, calm under pressure… If I couldn't roll with the punches, who could?

"Yeah, but, I mean, no, cos, well, ngk, that is, I'm- Are you sure you haven't heard of me?"

"No. Sorry. Should I have?"

"I'm- I- I used to be a cop. A detective. One of the best. That _Nebula _case, back in the 90s? That was- I was assigned to that case. I solved that."

"Oh, really? That was you? Jolly good work, dear boy. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

The Angel held out his hand, and I took it, shaking my head.

"No, no I mean- I _was _a detective. I'm not anymore."

"Early retirement? Lovely. That is the dream."

"No! I left. Quit. Well, sort of quit. Half quit, half got fired. Long story."

"Oh."

"Yeah, but now- I mean- Well- I'm a_ criminal _, now. Part of London's underworld. You know, confidence fraud, money laundering, the occasional non-violent heist… I'm, you know, the _bad guy _."

"Um. Right. Okay. Why exactly are you telling me this? Are you, I don't know, _confessing _, or something? Because honestly, if you are, I'd really rather you didn't. I've an awful lot on my plate at the moment, I simply don't have time for more paperwork right now."

"What? No. I'm not- I want you to _work with me _."

"Excuse me?"

"Work with me. You know. Solving crimes. _London's Most Wanted _and a desperate Detective on a case rapidly going cold, teaming up and joining forces to fight a crime that even the Underworld looks badly on… It's _classic _. Ngk. I mean-

"What does Elizabeth "_ The Jackknife _" Trent have to do with any of this?"

"What?"

"Why would I be teaming up with her? She's an awful piece of work. Do you know her? If so, I urge you to speak with the police. Just not _me _."

"What are you talking about?"

"London's Most Wanted. Elizabeth Trent. You said you wanted me to 'join forces' with her."

"What? No. Not her. _Me _. _I'm _London's Most Wanted."

The Angel laughed, and I didn't.

"Oh. Sorry. You aren't joking?"

"Of course I'm not joking. What kind of a joke would that be? Where's the humour? Get a grip."

"Oh. Well then. Don't mean to burst your bubble or anything, but I'm afraid you aren't anywhere near London's Most Wanted. Awfully sorry."

"A- wh- nnttttbbbuusssskkkk- Right. Alright, but how would you know? You'd never even heard of me. So. Yeah." I sniffed, an emphatic _full stop _on a flawless argument.

"Well, that's rather the point. I've been following up every Person of Interest this side of Watford whilst trying to solve this case, and your name hasn't come up once."

"_ What _!?"

"Sorry."

"Not once?"

"No."

"Not even for parking tickets?"

"I wouldn't know about that, I'm not assigned to traffic."

"Right."

The silence loomed heavy between us like a tank at a peace rally, only non-ironically.

"Um. Not to be impolite, but why are you talking to me? About any of this? I find myself rather at a loss..."

"I said. I want to work with you. No- I mean- Ngk- No, I want _you _to work with _me _."

"Why?"

"Because you aren't getting anywhere with your investigation, and I've reached a dead end with mine. This is big, Angel. I can _smell _it. And I want answers. I want _justice _for Tommy Friars, and I want to put a stop to whoever thinks they can get away with it with impunity."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you care? If you're such a 'bad guy', although honestly you've not done an awful lot to convince me of that fact as of yet, but I'll take your word for it, why are you suddenly so interested in justice? What does it matter to you?"

Here we go. This was more like it. Back on script. Thank you, Angel.

"I was a good person, once. Before the world revealed it's dark and rotten underbelly and stripped me of all my hope and optimism and compassion. Before life chewed me up and spat me out like gum on the pavement. I used to stand for something. When I found out about Tommy, a _kid _killed so mercilessly, right on my doorstep, that sparked something in me again. That _anger _. That righteous fury against the world, against all of those who think they can control and manipulate the lives of others. I can't sit back and watch when I could be doing something. And I _can _do something. I was the best at what I did, and once you have that, you never lose it. I care because of Tommy, and because of all the other lives these bastards have ruined along the way. I told you, Angel, this is big. This goes all the way up. There are hands at play from more than one deck, and I'll be damned if I don't take down the Dealer."

Ezra Fell stared at me with wide eyes and an open mouth. He swallowed and blinked a few times before speaking.

"Oh. Oh. Right. Oh. I must say, that's rather nice of you."

"I'm not _nice _," I snapped, slamming my glass on the counter and invading his personal space. "Nice is a four-letter word, and-"

"You're stepping on my foot."

"What?"

"My foot."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Quite alright."

"So," I said, getting back on topic. "What's it going to be?"

"Of course we can work together. Honestly, I need all the help I can get."

"Oh. Really?"

"Yes. And I understand if you want to keep this strictly off the record, too, what with you being an ex-officer, and everything. Bit of a delicate situation, I'm sure. And it'll save me on paperwork, too. So much blasted paperwork..."

"Oh. That's- Are you sure? I had a speech prepared, and-"

"No, no, don't trouble yourself. It's quite welcome, actually. I've been getting hints from top brass that if I don't start making some headway on this case soon, I'll be pulled from it. And, depressing and consuming as this case has proven to be, I really don't want that, at all. I'm as keen as you to get justice for that poor boy and his family."

"Ah. Right then. Ngk. That was- Honestly, I thought you'd be a bit harder to convince, Angel."

"You made an excellent argument, dear boy. Right then. Do we have an Agreement, Mister Crowley?"

"S'just Crowley. And yeah. Sounds like we do."

…. _TO BE CONTINUED ….._


	12. 12 Dragon

_Part II of Enchanted_

It had been three days since Crowley had left. Aziraphale wasn't sure that there had ever been a longer three days in the history of the universe.

He had spent his entire life, or at least, as much of his life as he could remember, locked up in that tower. He had experienced boredom, and longing, and yearning, and the sense that there was something _more, _before, even though he'd tried to deny it for the sake of his own sanity. But he'd never felt it like this. He'd never felt anything like this.

Every second felt like an hour, every hour a year. Nothing interested him. Not his books, not his writing, not knitting or baking or painting or watching the birds and the clouds from his window. A constant gnawing in the pit of his stomach prevented him from even being to fall asleep easily, although once he did get to sleep he'd slept for fourteen hours straight. He felt claustrophobic. Confined. Crushed. Incomplete, somehow, as though a part of his spirit, his essence, a little piece of what it meant to be _Aziraphale _was missing. And worse still, he didn't feel as though he had _lost _that piece of himself, but as though he had only now realised it wasn't there. That it had never been there. Some critical, crucial, central part of him had been locked off, or stamped down, or shut in the dark and kept from growing along with him. Kept from seeing the sun.

It had been three days since Crowley had left, when Gabriel showed up.

As usual, Gabriel did not announce his presence. He simply marched into the room -_ prison _, Aziraphale found himself saying in his mind - and said,

"Good afternoon, Aziraphale. Beautiful day, isn't it? How're you doing? Good? Good."

This seemed to Aziraphale to be a rather redundant question, as when Gabriel walked in, Aziraphale was laying face down on the floor with a blanket over his head.. But, then again, Gabriel never expected or wanted an answer to interpersonal questions like that. Aziraphale often wondered why he asked them at all.

"Still not up and dressed for the day, Aziraphale?" asked Gabriel, clicking his tongue against his teeth. "It's alright for some!" He smiled, reminding Aziraphale of an illustration of a dragon in one of his history books. All teeth and charm and treachery.

Aziraphale swallowed, and began to second guess himself. He shouldn't blame Gabriel for this. It wasn't his fault that Aziraphale was feeling so… However he was feeling. It wasn't Gabriel's fault that Crowley had to leave, either, not really. That was Aziraphale's fault. If he had just _listened _to Gabriel in the first place, and not engaged in conversations with strangers, then none of this would have happened. Crowley would never have had to leave, because he never would have stayed. Aziraphale would never have gotten his heart broken so completely, he never would have gotten a taste of life offering something _more _than… than _this _. It was his own fault. He'd brought it all upon himself. If only he'd- If only…

But he couldn't do it. Aziraphale was more than capable of blaming himself for everything under the sun until the stars fell out of the sky, but the one thing he couldn't do was say, even to himself, that he _regretted _what he had done. That he regretted Crowley's friendship. In spite of the anxiety, in spite of the loss, in spite of the searing, sickening heartache… He didn't regret it. He _couldn't _regret it. Even if the rest of his life was spent locked in this tower, lonelier than he'd have ever believed to be imaginable, he still wouldn't regret a single moment of it.

"Where did you get those apples?" Gabriel asked, snapping Aziraphale out of the pensive melancholy into which he had once again slipped.

"Hm?"

"Apples. Over there, you have a bag of apples. Where did you get them?"

"Uh, I um, well, you must have brought them with you, last time you were here," lied Aziraphale unconvincingly.

"That's strange, I don't remember bringing them."

"Oh. Well you must have done. How else could they possibly be here? I can't leave, you know that. You have the key."

"Not that you want to leave, though, right Aziraphale?" Gabriel said, twisting Aziraphale's words and using them against him. "Because you know how dangerous it is out there. You know how _foolish _it would be to interact with anything out there. And you aren't foolish, are you, Aziraphale?"

"No, Gabriel."

"That's what I thought. Well, you must be right, I must have brought you those apples. I'm so forgetful, lately!" He smacked himself on the forehead for comedic effect, but his eyes were like ice, and stayed locked onto Aziraphale with a relentless menace. "But you must really not like apples, in that case, if they've been here all that time and you still haven't eaten them? I'll just get rid of them for you, shall I?"

"No!" It was a stupid thing to cry out, Aziraphale knew as soon as he did it, but, silly as it was, those ridiculous apples were all he had left of Crowley. The thought of Gabriel getting his hands on them, taking them away, it was unbearable.

"No?" Gabriel said with that dragon's smile in his voice.

"No, I mean- That is to say- I- They um, they just weren't ripe. Yes. That's it, they um, they weren't ripe, and so I have been saving them, so that they ripen, and I have um, well, I was um, ah, yes, I wanted to bake an apple crumble with them, but I'd run out of flour again, so I was waiting for you to bring me fresh supplies so that I could, um, well, um, bake."

"Oh, well that makes sense…"

Gabriel began walking around the tower room. _Inspecting _it. He'd pause at anything that met with his disapproval and raise his eyebrows shake his head, never saying anything.

"Hello," he said, picking something up from the pile of rags Aziraphale kept near his easel for cleaning his paintbrushes. "What's this?"

Aziraphale looked over and, to his horror, saw that Gabriel was holding a black, red and gold silken handkerchief with Crowley's insignia embroidered into it. Aziraphale genuinely had no idea how it came to be up here. No doubt it had somehow found its way into one of the packages they'd exchange via the now dismantled blanket-rag-rope pulley.

"'Um, I don't know, Gabriel."

"It's very pretty. Is that silk? Far too expensive to be in your paint rag pile, Aziraphale. Whatever were you thinking?"

"I don't know."

Gabriel held the silk up to the light. The sunbeams from the window caught the golden threads, and they sparkled like diamonds.

"This _is _an interesting design. What is that, a snake?"

"I don't know."

" You don't know much today, do you? It is a beautiful design. I'm sure I've seen it somewhere before, though."

"Oh. Have you?"

Gabriel turned his icy lilac eyes onto Aziraphale.

"Where did you get this?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, Aziraphale, you_ must _know. Come on. You can tell me!" Gabriel narrowed his eyes and crumpled the silk handkerchief up in his fist. "Tell me," he smiled.

"I don't- I- I must have embroidered it."

"Oh, 'must' you have?"

"Um, well I haven't done embroidery for a while now, perhaps it is an older piece that I uh, that I discarded or, um…" he trailed off.

"So you won't mind if I take it, then? If it really is just an old rag to you?"

"I-"

"Unless it _isn't _what you just told me it is? Aziraphale? Unless there is something more _meaningful _behind this pretty little thing? Hm? Anything you feel you ought to tell me?"

"No. No. Of course not, Gabriel. What could I possibly- No. Um. Yes. Um. Of- Of course you can have it, if you wish. Its- I- Um- No. Yes. Just an old rag. Nothing to me. Nothing whatsoever."

"I am _so _pleased to hear it. No, if you'll excuse me, I'll send up your supplies and then be on my way. Hate to dash, but you know how it is." He laughed coldly. "Or maybe you don't! Lucky for some, eh?"

And Gabriel left. And Aziraphale was, once again, alone.

Another week passed, with every day the same as the last and yet still somehow worse simply by a process of cumulation.

Aziraphale had been asleep for fourteen hours. He woke up sometime mid morning, got dressed, stared out of the window for a while, made a cup of tea which he immediately forgot to drink, and then sat down at his desk with a book. It was a history book.

One of the only things Aziraphale had been able to distract himself with was searching through his extensive library for information on Crowley's snake insignia. Gabriel had recognised it, and Aziraphale needed to find out why. So far, no luck, but he kept on working away at it relentlessly. He worked and he slept, he slept and he worked. He barely remembered to eat.

Aziraphale was at his desk, poring over said history book, when he heard a noise from outside. It wasn't a noise that most people would have marked. A sound that others would have put down to the wind in the trees or an animal in the grass. But Aziraphale had spent his entire life in this building and he knew every usual sound like the back of his hand. This wasn't your average sussuruss. This was a _rustle _. Aziraphale walked over to the window and peered out. He was deeply preoccupied by scanning every inch of the view from his window for the cause of the audio anomaly, when he heard the door click behind him.

"Okay, first of all, don't freak out."

Aziraphale freaked out.

He spun around with a yelp, turning to face the voice and backing away from it at the same time. He nearly fell out of the window in the process.

The figure lunged forwards, crossing the room in a split second to grab Aziraphale's arm and stop him from toppling straight out of the tower window.

Aziraphale swayed as he regained his balance, if only physically.

"You need to go more careful. Didn't come all this way just to have you fall out of a window."

Aziraphale stared. His mouth hung open. He forgot to breathe.

"_ Crowley _?"

The man smile, warmly.

"Hi, angel."

For a moment Aziraphale was completely at a loss for words. It wasn't that he had nothing to say - quite the opposite, about a thousand different things were currently vying to be first off the mark, causing a pile up somewhere at the back of his throat.

And so, for a moment, all Aziraphale could do was stare. He'd never seen Crowley up close, only from the distance of his tower window. Of course, what the man looked like meant nothing to Aziraphale; Crowley could be a beautiful princess or a knight in shining armour or a wizened old man or an actual _frog _for all Aziraphale cared, but it was still very_something _-ish to finally see him up close. Aziraphale may have been better able to put his finger on precisely what that 'something' was, had he not been completely overwhelmed by about fifty-thousand other competing emotions at that moment, whilst also being completely distracted by the proximity of the friend he had thought he'd lost.

Crowley's eyes really were pure gold, flecked with orange and red and brown, and framed with deep-set crow-foot lines. His cheeks were hollow and his cheekbones sharp, his nose slightly hooked, everything about him was angular and slick. And his smile... Oh, now, that was something Aziraphale did find himself caring about. Crowley's smile was like pure_sunshine _. It _shone _, and banished all darkness, even from this dungeon of a tower, chasing away the shadows over Aziraphale's heart. It was bright. It was blinding. It was beautiful.

But it was bright and blinding and beautiful and _absolutely, positively, unequivocally_ _should not have been there_.

Aziraphale's words finished fighting for first position, and the victors slammed out from between his teeth in a hiss.

"_ What are you doing here?!"_

"Well, yeah, okay, so it's a bit of a long story, but-"

"You _can't _be here!" Aziraphale panicked. "But- but you actually _can't _? You physically- How are you- How did you-? I don't? You have to leave!"

"Bugger that!" Crowley said, tossing his head and stalking across the room. He leaned against Aziraphale's desk. "I have had a hell of a time with all of this, angel. And I'm not about to be thrown out on my arse before at least being given the chance to talk to you." He paused. "Well, I mean, obviously if you really insist I'll- But I'd really recommend against that."

Aziraphale chewed the inside of his cheek as Crowley looked at him imploringly from across the room. Well, Aziraphale could hardly say no to him, could he? Even if he wanted to which, honestly, he really didn't. And, well, Crowley was already here, wasn't he? The damage was already done. He might as well hear the fellow out. It wasn't as though Gabriel was likely to show up, he'd only been there a week ago.

Aziraphale sighed and stepped forward.

"I suppose you'll be wanting something to drink, then?"

Whilst Aziraphale prepared two cups of tea (he needed something mundane and physical to anchor him, right now), Crowley started to explain, well, what the hell was going on.

"After you told me to leave," he began, helping himself to a ginger snap, "I was planning on leaving. Properly leaving, I mean. I wasn't- Ngk- I didn't want to, you know, _upset you _, or anything, by sticking around or- but-" Crowley sighed. "But I didn't have anywhere to _go _. I didn't fancy heading back into that bloody _weird _forest without knowing exactly where I was going - it was a miracle I got this far into it without getting eaten by some giant tree monster or a pack of werewolves or by whatever else is lurking in that _hellscape _…" Crowley shot a vituperative glare out of the window at the treetops. "Anyway, so forwards wasn't an option, and I wasn't about to go back the way I came because- That is to say- I couldn't- That just wasn't an option. Isn't an option."

"So, as I didn't really know what else to do, I just went back to that little clearing I told you about. The one about half an hour from here, with that wild orchard, and that little river? I just, ngk, well, I just set up camp there…"

"You were that close? All this time?"

"Nnnnnkkkkkaaahh But I only meant to be there for a night or two. Just to, mmmmnnnk, get my bearings. Get a plan. You kicked me out bloody abruptly, angel. _Thanks _for that, by the way…"

"And good thing I did, too. Gabriel showed up not long after you'd left. Then we'd have _really _been in trouble…"

"Ah. Yes. Well. I'm getting to that."

Aziraphale's attention jerked swiftly away from the teapot and his eyes locked onto Crowley.

"No, look, angel, look, okay, you have to promise me that you won't, nnngkkkk, freak out…"

"What have you done?"

"No, look, right, it's- I- Just promise me you won't get mad, and then I'll tell you what happened."

"I will do no such thing!"

"Argh, _god _you are _stubborn _. Fine. Fine. Whatever. Get mad. Do what you want. Won't change anything. S'done now. So. Waste of your time to get angry at me. Keep that in mind."

"Crowley…"

"Ngk. I saw Gabriel. When he came here. With his horse, and all of that food and stuff. And, um, well, the thing is, I sort of followed him."

"You _what!?"_

"I followed him."

"Why on _earth _would you _do _ that, Crowley!? Have you any _idea _how much danger you put yourself in?! If he had-"

"I recognised him, that's why," Crowley interrupted.

"I- What? How? From- what?"

"Look, angel, I don't really know the right way to say this, so I'm just going to say it; Gabriel, the Gabriel who's been keeping you locked up here for all these years, he's basically the King of Annwyn."

Aziraphale shook his head and scoffed.

"You're being ridiculous."

"No, I'm not. I- Well I mean he's not the _King _King. Because the Queen and the Prince both disappeared, Gabriel became the Regent. Lord Protector of the Realm. He's in charge. Basically King. King- _ish _."

"But- but- but- I-...Why? How? I- I don't understand. Are you sure?"

"Yyyyeah, pretty sure. I followed him, on Bentley, until he came to this doorway, portal, _thing _. Glittery, old-looking gateway covered in runes and glowing stones. Only it wasn't glowing and being all magic-ish or anything until he pressed the runestones in a particular order, then it started going all _whoooooshhhh _and _tingtingtingting _and-" Crowley wiggled his hands. "And then he just… stepped into it. And it went back to being all _not-whoooosh _-y. And he was _gone _."

Aziraphale picked up a biscuit and bit it absently. He was starting to feel as though he had fallen into some extremely odd kind of nightmare. Nothing felt very real.

"So, of course, I couldn't _not _take a look at it, could I? I copied the rune sequence he'd hit in, and sure enough _whooooooosh _, big glow-y door."

"And uh, you went into it, I suppose?"

"Well yeah. Obviously."

"Obviously."

"The thing is, it opened up on the other side right outside the walls of the palace, at the heart of the capital city. So that went quite a way in convincing me that I was right in thinking I'd recognised Gabriel. Right, anyway, so I wandered about for a bit in the gardens, and then I saw Gabriel again. Chatting to some servant or gardener, whatever. Look, to cut a long story short, I followed him into the palace, pickpocketed the key to this place, and legged it back here as fast as I could."

Aziraphale blinked. He had so, so, _so _many questions. None of this made sense. And Crowley's story was _seriously _lacking in details. He didn't even know where to start.

"Are you sure he didn't see you?"

"Yeah. Do you think I'd be here right now if he had?"

Aziraphale considered this, and agreed that Crowley had a point.

"But still I- How did you get into the palace? How could you have gotten close enough to Gabriel to steal the key? How did you-"

"Right, uh, let me cut you off a second, angel, because, well, the thing is, that's not- Well- Okay. Okay. The thing is, I think I found out some other things, whilst I was there. Or figured some things out, or- Right. Um. Ngk. I don't really know how to- Alright. Look. You know I told you about the baby Prince, who got killed?"

"Um. Yeah. Yes. I remember."

"Don't you think it's a bit weird that you'd never heard about him? That all of your history books stop just before that Prince's mother became Queen?"

"I don't- I suppose I'd never thought about it."

"Well think about it now, angel. Why does Gabriel, the Lord Protector of the Kingdom of Annwyn, keep _you _locked up in this tower?"

Crowley stared intently at Aziraphale, willing him to come to the conclusion for himself. But Aziraphale couldn't. He didn't want to. He could feel the answer gnawing away at him in the recesses of his mind, prickling at the base of his skull, but he didn't want to look at them.

"Aziraphale, you_ are _that Prince."

Aziraphale shook his head. "No- That's- I- It-..."

"You are. You are the lost Prince of Annwyn. He didn't die, _you _didn't die. Gabriel didn't _find you orphaned in the woods _. He stole you away. The Queen went AWOL and he saw his chance. Get rid of the kid, the only heir, who's left to rule? The Regent. And in case anyone ever challenges him, he has you here, all that brilliantly useful Royal DNA - and you are the _spitting image _of you mother, by the way, if her portraits in the palace are at all accurate -, ready to bring you out of hiding if necessary, bam! Compliant puppet king on the throne, and Gabriel gets to keep his powerbase."

Aziraphale shook his head and tried to catch hold of his racing thoughts. "I don't- I- This- You- This is all ridiculous. You are being ridiculous. This is- None of this is-"

"I know it's all a bit, ngk, much to take in. But-"

"I think you should go," Aziraphale said, dully. "You need to go. Now. You need to leave."

"Ach, angel, don't be like that. Just- You have to trust me, I-"

"_ Trust you _!?" Aziraphale snapped, surprising Crowley, and himself even moreso. "How can you expect me to _trust you _?! I don't even know who you _are _, Crowley! You show up out of nowhere, and camp outside my home for weeks and weeks on end, then when I ask you to leave you _don't _, and then you _follow _my _guardian _and _steal _from him! Break into my home, begin spouting these fantastical stories, and you ask me to _trust _you?! I don't even know where you're _from _! I know nothing about you! I don't even _like _you!"

"You _do _."

Aziraphale exhaled, and nodded, suddenly exhausted. Because he did like Crowley. And he did trust him. And he did believe him. He just really, really wished that he didn't.

"I can't deal with this," he said, simply.

Crowley said nothing as Aziraphale walked dazedly over to his armchair, sat down heavily, and buried his head in his hands. Aziraphale took a few deep breaths in an attempt to steady himself, but it didn't really work.

"Sorry," Crowley said. "I know this must be- I'm sorry. I just thought you should know."

Aziraphale heard a _clink _and looked up. Crowley had placed the key on the end table beside him. The key to the tower. The key to his _freedom _.

Aziraphale stared at it.

"You could come with me," said Crowley, voice hesitant. "If you wanted. Get out here. Go wherever you like."

Aziraphale looked up at him.

"You don't have to," Crowley added, quickly. "If you don't want to. I just thought, maybe, if you don't have anywhere else to go, and I don't have anywhere else to go, we could, I don't know, go somewhere else together. Somewhere new."

"I-"

"As much as I hate to interrupt such a _touching _scene," Gabriel said, suddenly appearing in the doorway at the top of the stairs and causing both Aziraphale and Crowley to visibly flinch, "but I'm afraid I _really _must. You and I need to have a little conversation, Aziraphale. But first, let me properly introduce you to your _friend... _" Gabriel paused theatrically, raising one finger to his lips. "Or maybe I should let _my _friend do the honours?"

Gabriel nodded meaningfully at the window, and Aziraphale and Crowley followed his gaze with their own.

Out of the window, swooping and dipping over the trees of the cursed forest, was a dragon.

Aziraphale blanched.

Crowley swallowed.

"_Oh, fuck."_

_... TO BE CONTINUED ..._


	13. 13 Ash

Aziraphale had just sat down on the sofa in the little flat above the bookshop, when he heard a loud knocking coming from the general area of the Bookshop's front door.

"Leave it," Crowley said, flopping down onto the settee and dropping his feet onto the Angel's lap. He began clicking through Netflix listings.

The knocking continued.

Aziraphale drew his eyebrows together anxiously and glanced towards the stairs. "What if it's something important?"

"If it's important, they'll come back," Crowley replied. "Or call."

"You have your portable telephone turned off, Crowley. And I saw you unplug the shop's telephone, too."

"Ehhhhhh, yeah, well," Crowley shrugged, "it's _Sunday _, angel. Day of rest, and, you know, _more rest _. Not _Day Of Answering Annoying Phone Calls And Cold Callers At The Door _."

"Hmmm…"

"We have five seasons of The Great British Bake Off left to watch, and that's not including the Comic Relief Specials. We'll never get through them if you answer the bloody phone every time it rings. I want to find out whether Nancy beats Richard for Star Baker…"

Another round of knocks echoed through to the upstairs living room.

"They aren't leaving…"

"Then they can just stand outside."

"It's _raining _, Crowley…"

"Then they can get wet."

Aziraphale pouted and pushed Crowley's feet off of him, intending to stand up and go downstairs to answer the door, but Crowley pouted straight back at him, wavering his resolve.

"Oh, fine," the Angel huffed. He hooked his arm around the Demon's ankles and tugged them back onto his lap.

Crowley grinned.

oOo

Outside, two figures stood in the doorway of the bookshop. One was tall with dark hair, and the other was shorter, with curly blonde hair. The smaller one was bouncing up and down impatiently.

"They aren't in," the dark-haired one said.

"Noooooo they are. They will be. It's Sunday, and it's raining, and- Look, no they will be. Or at least one of them will be. Don't be a pessimist, Pen."

"Don't call me Pen, we are _undercover _, dummy. I'm ' _Ash _'. Like Ashton Kutcher. Or Ashley Olsen."

"Or Ash Ketchum!"

"No."

The blonde person who wasn't called Ash knocked on the door again.

"He isn't _in _. I told you we should have tried Crowley's flat instead."

"No! The _Bookshop _is the _place _. It's _the _place, Pen- Ash. That's where everything went _down _, man!I need to go into the booookshoooop!"

"Why didn't we come when it was _open _, then, if you just wanted to see the shop so much?"

"You know Aziraphale keeps stupid as fuck hours, Pe- Ash. Ugh. I'm not gonna get used to that name. Why can't I just call you Pen and you just call me Zophiel?"

"Dude, cos we have to pass as human. Humans aren't called stuff like Penemue and Zophiel. We need normal human names, like Ash and - What name did you choose, again?"

"Apple," Zophiel-Also-Known-As-Apple said, cheerily.

"Is that a human name?"

"Yeah, Gwenyth Paltrow and that guy from Coldplay called their kid Apple, didn't they?. And that singer who sings _Criminal _, I think she's called Apple. Or something. And, like, um, that phone guy. He called his phone Apple. It's like, totally a name, P- Ash."

"I guess…"

"And also, you know, like _Apple _. Like _The Apple _. From _Eden _. Like _Crowley's Apple _… So cool, so cool! It's _symbolic. _"

"Yeah, I dunno if it's a name, dude."

"Shut up, it's so totally a name!"

"Fine then _Apple _\- I think we should _leave now _because he's _obviously not in _. And I don't think I like this rain very much. It's cold and wet. I didn't think it would be cold and wet. How do humans put up with it? When will it stop? I don't like it."

"I dunno," Apple said, looking up at the sky and squinting. "But we can't leave. This is, like, the entire point of even being _down _here. Like, and Tanariel in body-issuing owed me a favour, they won't just give us out some more bodies just cos we go back and are all, like ' _oh heyyyyyyy doll, you look amazing, love the hair today, sooooo, we went down to Earth, awesome time, thanks so much for not mentioning it to Michael, total solid, but the thiiiiing iiiiiiis we didn't manage to say hi to that Angel and that Demon who fucked up The Great Plan and helped stop Armageddon and who we are absolutely totally not supposed to have any contact with ever ever ever cos they are, like, contaminated and insane, or something, sooooo do you think we could get these bodies back again say a week on Tuesday so we can nip back down and try and catch them?' _Yeah that'll go down _hella well _, Pen."

"It's _Ash _! And dude, like, it's not now or never, we could just like, come back tomorrow. We're here for, like, another week yet. Chill,man."

"I will not!" Apple squeaked, hopping up and down and knocking on the door again with renewed vigour.

"Fine. Fine! Whatever," Ash said, throwing their arms up in exasperation. "Do what you want. I'm gonna call Samyaza and Orias, see if they wanna go on the London Eye with me."

"Nooooooo Pe-e-e-e-n don't leave me! And we aren't 'sposed to hang out with Sam and Ori… What if someone sees us?"

"Dude, we aren't supposed to be here at _all _. We _super _aren't supposed to be trying to meet Crowley and Aziraphale. We are so totally _beyond _supposed to, Zo. Like, we are already breaking a zillion rules, a couple more won't make much difference. And anyway, who's gonna see? _We _are the Watchers, you, me, Sam, and Ori. S'not like our jobs are important enough to cover us whilst we're on vacation, is it? We're fine. Stop stressing. I'm gonna call them."

"Yeah but they are _Demons _, Pen…"

"Eh, well. So what? So's Crowley."

"Well, yeah, but, like, he's _different _."

"And so are Sam and Ori! Come on, man, don't throw them under the bus now. Remember that time we lost all that footage of Aziraphale performing that epic Ay-Eff miracle in Barcelona? Sam and Ori sent us all their footage of it so Michael wouldn't bust our asses. They're _cool _, man. Don't be a douche, Zo. Apple. Whatever. They're in the same boat as us. Us Watchers gotta stick together."

"I guess… But don't they wanna meet Crowley and Aziraphale, too, though? You could get them to come here and-"

"Nah, they are too scared of him. El-oh-el."

"They are a bit _timid _, aren't they…"

"Yeah, well, I mean, they're cool though. And they love A and C almost as much as we do."

Apple-Usually-Called-Zophiel sighed and looked sadly at the bookshop door. "I _do _love them…"

Ash-More-Frequently-Referred-To-As-Penemue slung their arm around Zophiel's shoulders. "Ah, chin up, bud. We'll come back tomorrow yeah?"

"Yeah, alright…" Zophiel said, unhappily. They looked up at Pen with puppy-dog eyes and pouted mournfully.

Pen rolled their eyes and sighed. "Oh, for fuckssake, fine…" they said, and knocked loudly on the door. Very loudly. "Maybe you were just knocking too quiet. I guess they could be up in the flat or something."

Zophiel beamed. "N'awww Pen, you're the best."

"It's _Ash._ And I know. I am. But if no one answers the door after that knock, cos that was a _serious_ knock, we'll just come back another day. Deal?"

"Yeah, okay, deal!"

oOo

Up in the flat, Crowley and Aziraphale found themselves distracted from_ The Great British Bake Off _by another knock on the Bookshop door.

Aziraphale glanced anxiously at Crowley, who pulled the blanket up under his chin and kept his eyes stubbornly focused on Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood.

"That one sounded much more urgent, Crowley…"

"Angel, just ignore it. Who _cares _? It's probably Jehovah's Witnesses. Or someone doing a survey about buses. They can be very insistent."

"My dear, I really don't think people collecting surveys about buses would stay on my doorstep in the rain for ten minutes."

"Well maybe it was bus people first, and they left, and _now _it's Jehovah's Witnesses. Or Mormons. _Or _someone _really keen _to buy one of your _first editions… _"

That gave the Angel pause for thought.

"Oh. Oh do you think it might be?"

"Yeah, probably. You know what those collector types can be like. Entitled, insistent…"

"They are awful," said Aziraphale with some concern.

"Yeah! So _leave it _."

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. "Why you- You wiley old serpent! Don't think I don't see what you are doing!"

Crowley widened his eyes innocently. "Who? Me?"

"Yes! You almost got me, there."

"Eh, well it could be a collector. That's as likely as anything else, angel."

"You just don't want me to get up because you are comfortable and warm and you don't want to move."

"Uh, _ye-ea-ah _."

"Well I'm going to go and check," Aziraphale said, wriggling out from under Crowley's legs, causing the Demon to whine pathetically. "Oh, don't give me that, dearheart. I'll be quick. Don't worry about pausing the Bake Off."

Crowley paused it anyway.

"I'll come with you," he groaned, heaving himself off of the sofa and throwing his blanket around his shoulders like a very soft and duck-patterned cape. "Just in case."

Aziraphale smiled affectionately, and then frowned. "You don't think there'll be trouble?"

"I always think there'll be trouble, angel. I'm a very paranoid creature," Crowley said, yawning. "Come on. Whoever it is, let's go and get rid of them."

The Angel and the Demon shuffled down the back stairs and into the Bookshop.

They went to the front door. They opened it.

Aziraphale poked his head out into the rainy street.

"No one's here," he said, looking up and down the street.

"Told you," Crowley said, shivering and pulling the blanket more tightly around himself.

"No you didn't," Aziraphale said, shutting the door. "You said it would be Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or someone doing a survey or someone trying to buy something."

"Eh, same difference…Hey, look at this."

Crowley leaned down and pulled a piece of paper out of the letterbox. It was pink, and decorated with hearts and flowers. Crowley wrinkled his nose.

"What is it?" Aziraphale asked, peering over.

Crowley unfolded the sheet and read its contents aloud.

"_ Hi, _exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point-"

"_ Three _exclamation points?"

"Yep. Sign of insanity, that."

"So I've heard."

"-_ So totally super sorry to have missed you guys. Big fans of your work. Well, mostly just of you, yourselves, being yourselves, being epic AF. You guys totally fucking rule. Seriously. Like, you are the best. We love you. Not to be weird or anything. Just big, big fans. Hope that's not weird. Don't freak out about that, cos it's like normal to be fans of people. Humans are fans of people all the time. Like Keanu Reeves. He's cool. We know that because we are humans, just regular, boring humans, who happen to be big fans. Of you. Aziraphale and Crowley. Oh my god, I can't believe you are actually going to read this with your actual eyes, oh my god. Way too exciting. Look, anyway, we will try coming back some other day to try and catch you in. We won't be weird about it. Promise. We just super want to say hi, and let you know how much we appreciate your work. And you. You are so fucking awesome. Like, oh my god, I literally can't even. _

_See you soon, _five exclamation points, _love Ash and Apple, Humans _."

Crowley and Aziraphale stared at the paper.

"Bit weird," Crowley said.

"Mm. Just a bit," Aziraphale replied. "Trouble?"

Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Maybe…" he said, sceptically. "Bloody odd trouble, if it is."

Aziraphale sighed. "Isn't it always?"

"Yeah, you have a point."

They went back upstairs to snuggle back up on the sofa, drink tea, and finish watching the _Bake Off _.

Crowley was very pleased when Nancy won.


	14. 14 Overgrown

oOo

Crowley always liked order, when it came to his plants. He liked his plants to grow perfectly. Perfect shade, perfect size, perfect shape. Never a vine out of place, never a leaf overgrown. Crowley liked _order_. He liked to keep his garden neat. He liked to keep his _life_ neat. He liked his flat to be sleek and clean and exact and minimalistic. Polished. Pristine. Pared back. A place for everything, and everything in its place. He liked the security of control.

The world was too full of chaos, he felt. Disorganised, full of unknowns and uncontrollables, variables and variations throwing him off balance at every turn. People were always so capriciously indecisive, so unfailingly irrational, their meandering inconsistencies consistently getting in his way. He had no patience for it.

That was the beauty of asking questions, he felt. Questions dragged the Unknown into the Known. They made _sense_ of it all, explaining the seemingly inexplicable, extricating the seemingly inextricable. Questions sought to untangle the chaos and reveal the order within it. Crowley always wanted to find out _why_.

oOo

Aziraphale was never particularly _organised_, at least not by conventional standards. His bookshop, to most observers, appeared an entirely chaotic mess, with no clear system or structure whatsoever. Of course, this was an entirely wrong assumption - Aziraphale knew precisely where everything in his shop was at all times. More or less, anyway. Well, generally speaking, at least. He could always find what he needed, when he needed it, and that was all that mattered. If no one else could find anything, what was it to him? All the better, in his view. His bookshop took on a life of its own, wild and unrestrained, like a garden, overgrown. He liked the security of freedom.

Aziraphale often felt, although for a long time he refused to allow this feeling to filter through as fully articulated thoughts, that the world was too full of order. Regimented, full of constraints and circumscription, obligations and expectations hemming him in at every turn. People always wanted clearly set paths and plans, stories written in stone from the outset, immutable and indisputable.

That was part of the beauty of books of prophecy, he thought. They didn't lay out the future, crystalline. Through meandering phrase and ambiguous language they instead, and with beautiful irony, laid out maps of possibility that allowed for imagination, and speculation, and individual interpretation. Dragging the indubitable into the _ineffable_. Reaching through the illusion of order and throwing open the chaos within it. Aziraphale always wanted to ask _but what if?_

oOo

A garden behind a cottage on the South Downs in the Spring blossoms into mass of colour and life. Considered, but not constricted. Growing, but never overgrown. A harmony of wilderness and will.


	15. 15 Legend

"Mmmm," Gabriel said, looking at Crowley with amusement.'_ Oh fuck _' indeed. I take it by your reaction that you recognise our mutual friend flying around out there, Anthony?"

Crowley said "Mmmnnnffalkjskdljgfkljgaljlkj".

"I'll assume that that was a 'yes'," Gabriel replied.

Aziraphale looked back and forth between the two of them.

"Ah, Aziraphale, you look a little lost," Gabriel said. "Let me fill you in. You see, legend has it that-"

"Nnnggkk! Don't!" Crowley interrupted.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow and bared a smile that was somehow no less dragon-like, even in the face of direct comparison with an _actual Dragon's face _. "Oh, would _you _rather tell him, Anthony?"

"Anthony?" Aziraphale said, shaking his head and latching onto the most easily comprehensible anomaly in this entire ridiculous situation. "Who is Anthony?"

"Ahhh tsk tsk tsk. Didn't even tell him your _real name _, Anthony? And here, I thought you two were supposed to be _friends. _"

"My name is _Crowley _," Crowley hissed through his teeth. He was wearing an expression that looked somewhere between being about to throw up and being about to leap across the room and rip Gabriel's face off with his teeth. "And he _is _my friend."

"Is that why you've lied to him? Is that _friendship? _"

Aziraphale glanced over to his friend, if indeed he was his friend, wide eyed. "Crowley?"

Crowley exhaled heavily through his nose, and looked back and forth between Aziraphale and Gabriel.

"Well?" Gabriel said with laughter in his voice. "Are you going to tell him, or shall I?"

Outside the dragon bellowed, swooping past the window at such a near proximity that its beating wings threw a draft across the room, scattering papers from Aziraphale's desk.

"Our friend out there is getting impatient. Perhaps I should call them in and-"

"No!" Crowley barked. "No. You don't- It's- I-" He dragged his hand down his face, looking like death itself.

Gabriel grinned smugly. " Aziraphale, your little _pal _here hasn't been entirely honest with you. You see that captivating creature tearing about out there? Well, that happens to be Lord Beelzebub of Techduinn."

Aziraphale frowned. "I don't understand?"

"There is a legend," Gabriel began, speaking to Aziraphale but keeping his eyes locked on Crowley and lighting up with sadistic amusement as Crowley writhed under the words, "that those of Techduinnan Royal Blood have the ability to mutate into_ serpents _. And, with dedication and just a touch of magical talent, that ability can be honed and sharpened and amplified until, well-" Gabriel gestured to the window, to the Dragon. "You can see the spectacular results for yourself."

Aziraphale shook his head in disbelief. "This is absurd. You can't expect me to believe-"

"Tell him," Gabriel said, eyes boring into Crowley like knives. "Tell him that I'm telling the truth."

Crowley swallowed nervously, and his eyes flickered up to meet Aziraphale's. "It's true," he said with a dulled voice. "That's- It's all true. That is Lord Beelzebub flying around out there. He's not lying."

"Crowley, how do you know all this?" Aziraphale asked, not wanting the answer.

"Nnnmmkkk, angel-" Crowley shook his head, avoiding eye contact.

"Go on," Gabriel said lightly, "tell him. Tell him exactly how you know. _Prince Anthony of Techduinn _."

"Wh- What?" Aziraphale took a step backwards and bumped into the edge of his desk. "Crowley? Is this true? Are you- You're-"

"Aziraphale, I can explain. Just ngk-"

Gabriel clicked his tongue against his teeth and tilted his head in a parody of sympathy.

"Ah, you see, Aziraphale? You trusted someone, you let your good nature get the better of your good sense, and what happens? You let in a national enemy. You put the safety of everyone in this entire Kingdom at risk. I know you didn't _mean _to, Aziraphale, but you did. It's not entirely your fault, we all know how persuasive and manipulative Techduinnans can be. Or, at least, we _all _know _now _. You can't be completely to blame for letting him talk you around with his snakelike wiles. It's what he _does _. You're just another deluded victim of Techduinnan treachery. Can't _blame _you for that. If anything _I'm _to blame for not adequately preparing you for such an eventuality..."

"No!" Crowley cried out, eyes wide. "Aziraphale, that's not- I swear it's not like that. I'm not- I mean yes, I am- _was _the Prince, and- but I don't _want _to be. That's why I'm- Why I- I_ran away _. I- I-"

"Of course he'd say that _now _," Gabriel said. "He's backed into a corner! Is it just a coincidence that you came across this place? That you found _Prince Aziraphale _at random? Completely unintentional?"

"Yes! I didn't- It wasn't- Please, angel, I left all that behind me. That's not who I am. Just-" Crowley stared at Aziraphale, desperate and earnest. "I didn't lie to you. I just didn't tell you the whole truth. About who I used to be, and it is who I _used to be _\- I'm not _Prince Anthony of Techduinn _anymore," he grimaced. "I left that behind. I'm not- I'm just Crowley. Everything I've told you, everything I am, that's all me. That's all true. Please. Aziraphale. Angel?"

Aziraphale didn't know what to feel. This was all far too much to process. An avalanche of insane information was relentlessly crashing into him, and there was a _bloody great dragon _still circling around outside. He couldn't cope with this.

But there was Crowley, in front of him, breath shaking, eyes pleading. Aziraphale didn't know whether he believed what Crowley was saying, or whether he just really, really wanted to believe it. He did so want to believe it. But-

"Why are you still here, _your majesty _?" Gabriel cut in with a sneer. "Don't you think it's about time you went back to where you belong? Hm?"

Crowley's head suddenly whipped around and his attention locked onto Gabriel like a snake locking onto its prey. Gabriel smirked, but didn't quite manage to hide the fear flickering behind his eyes.

"I _am _where I belong," Crowley hissed. "Why are _you _here, Gabriel?"

Gabriel laughed, uneasily. "Why am I here? What a ridiculous- Aziraphale, don't listen to him, he's-"

Crowley took a step towards Gabriel, who flinched. "No. I'm talking to _you, _Gabriel. What are _you _doing here? How did you know I would be here? Why is _Beelzebub _flying around out there? What is your _game _?"

"My game?" Gabriel laughed again. "You couldn't even _begin _to understand my-" He stopped himself and straightened his collar. "I _knew _that you followed me, you _fucking idio _t. You thought your little sneaky snake routine was infallible? I _knew _you were following me, Anthony, the whole time. I _let _you follow me. I purposefully left the gateway unlocked, I let you 'sneak' into the castle with your little shape-shifter-snake act. I even let you steal the key. I knew about _all _of it. You played right into our hands." Gabriel's face lit up and he pressed his palms together in front of his chest. "And speaking of _our _hands, I think it's about time we let Lord Beelzebub in on this little meeting, don't you?"

Gabriel stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly.

Outside the dragon made a 180 degree turn and began hurtling directly towards the tower. Aziraphale gasped, and Crowley stepped in front of him, putting himself between his friend and the window. Crowley reached back and grabbed Aziraphale's hand, squeezing his fingers. In spite of everything, or, perhaps, because of everything Aziraphale found himself squeezing back.

Mere metres before crashing headlong into the tower, the dragon began to shift, starting with the head and then wriggling down to the tail, shrinking and stretching until it became a small (at least, small relative to a dragon) snake with wings. The snake glided through the window and skidded onto the floor in a coil.

Aziraphale watched from over Crowley's shoulder as the snake twisted upwards and took the form of a short, dark-haired human.

Lord Beelzebub cracked their neck and rolled their shoulders.

"Princzzze Anthony, you have led uszz on quite the merry runaround..."

_…...TO BE CONTINUED!..._


	16. 16 Wild

Aziraphale started letting his hair grow out. That was the start of it. Not _much _, mind you, but enough. Enough for it to start looking just a little shaggy, the curls taking on an aspect just a little more feral, bringing just a touch of wildness to the Angel's overall aesthetic. Just a touch. Just enough for Crowley to notice.

He started worrying less, too. Very, very gradually. And not enough for him to stop being _Aziraphale _\- being a little tightly wound was as intrinsic to the Angel's nature as hoarding books or never turning down the offer of cake. But his anxieties seemed to stop holding him back so much, in ways Crowley hadn't really even realised they had before- well, before everything went so catastrophically wrong, and then went so sublimely _right_.

The Angel spent much more time with Crowley now, too, and without ever coming up with some explanation for it, or some excuse, or carrying a sense of nervous unease about any time they were in public together. He sat next to him on buses, leaned in across the table over dinner, whispered happily (and a little annoyingly) to him during theatre performances, and sometimes even took his arm whilst they strolled through the park.

But Crowley's favourite change, even more than the hair (and he _did _appreciate the hair) was how much more Aziraphale _smiled _. At everything. At everyone. But especially at Crowley.

The Angel had always been the smiling type, but - and Crowley could only _really _see this now, now that it was gone - there had previously been a weight behind so many of those smiles. A weight of sadness, and fear, and the sense that someone was looking over his shoulder. Not always, but enough for it to have made a difference. Enough for the change to be marked. And good _God _how Crowley marked it. Because these days when Aziraphale smiled it was utterly untamed. Unapologetically zoetic. Wild, and feral, and unabashed, positively bursting with joie de vivre and deliciously, irresistibly puckish flashes of mischief.

When Aziraphale smiled at Crowley these days, he never checked himself. He never damped down the warmth in his eyes, never tempered the joy in his expression. He never shut himself down or turned away, never stumbled or stopped, or held himself back. Now when Aziraphale smiled at Crowley he truly smiled, and he kept smiling. He never seemed to stop.

Sometimes Crowley wondered how long his heart could put up with it. It really was quite irritating.


	17. 17 Ornament

"Ah! Crowley!" Aziraphale called out just a little too brightly and with just a little too much of a smile as he saw his erstwhile nemesis walk into the small and extremely _hidden-gem_-ish cafe situated along the border between Soho and Mayfair. He had seen Crowley before Crowley had seen him, and as such the Angel got to see the smile that flitted across the Demon's face the moment he realised that Aziraphale was waiting for him, and before it was promptly and properly replaced with an expression of cool indifference and a taciturn nod of acknowledgement.

The year was 1989. Aziraphale hadn't seen Crowley since early 1985. Just shy of four years. Which, granted, in the grand scheme of things wasn't really very long at all. Not for them. They'd gone hundreds of years without seeing hide nor hair of each other, before. Four years was nothing, not really. But, to Aziraphale at least, it had felt like a jolly long time.

Recently - that is to say from since around the early 1940s - Aziraphale had been finding himself increasingly more,well, let's say _well-intentioned_ towards the Demon. He had been finding it increasingly more easy to find increasingly more reasons to spend time in his company with increasingly more regularity. Coming up with such excuses had actually not proved as difficult as might be assumed, as Crowley seemed as happy to be around Aziraphale as Aziraphale was to be around him. As such Crowley accepted without question whatever unlikely, tenuous, or downright _weird_ premises the Angel came up with to necessitate their association. In fact, Crowley often came up with a great number of his own.

It was all a little bit alarming, actually.

Aziraphale had been away. Heaven had said he'd been spending far too much time and miracling energy in the UK, and had politely suggested that he broaden his angelic horizons and _go work in some other places for a while_. Polite suggestions from Heaven were in reality direct orders. Aziraphale had dutifully nodded along and began mentally planning a gastronomic travel itinerary so that he could at least make the best of this inconvenience. But perhaps Heaven were right. Perhaps some time away from London, away from England and away from… Well.

Because maybe, Aziraphale had said to himself whilst feeling indefinably traitorous, if Crowley were not so easily accessible then his frankly excessive interest in the Demon's company would wane. That if it were no longer so easy to call him up after having a bad day (or a dull day, or a good day, or after an evening drinking a little more wine than he really ought) and suggest a "meeting", then the impulse would be more easily suppressed. Eventually it might simply disappear, and everything would become that much more simple again.

No such luck. In fact, Aziraphale found himself experiencing quite the opposite effect. Because he had really rather _missed_ Crowley whilst he had been away. Whilst going to marvellous places and enjoying wonderful things (particularly wonderful food), Aziraphale had found himself pestered by a continuous prickling sensation on the back of his neck. A persistently sporadic twinge in his chest. A voice in his mind constantly saying things like _Crowley would love this_, or _Crowley would hate this_, or _I expect Crowley would have a particularly scathing and witty comment to make about this_, or, simply, _I wish Crowley were here_. It had driven him to distraction.

"Alright, angel?" Crowley drawled as he swaggered over to Aziraphale's table near the back of the cafe, and swung himself, serpentine, into the chair opposite. "Long time no see."

"Oh. Yes. Yes it has been, rather," Aziraphale said lightly, as he tried to ignore the dizzying sensation currently slamming into him that now, and only now, he had truly come _home_. "You look well, new haircut?" He paused and tried to pull himself back to keeping it professional. "Um. Yes, well, um. Any, uh, any news I should be aware of?"

"Nah. Nothing, really," said Crowley, picking up a menu and turning it over in his hands. "Nothing that isn't all over the papers, anyway. Nothing new with me. All been pretty dull since you've been away."

"Oh, has it? I suppose that's better than it being too lively. _May you live in interesting times_, and all that."

"Yeah, something like that," Crowley said distractedly. He stared at the laminated paper in his hands for a few moments. "How about you? Good trip?"

Aziraphale nodded. "Got an awful lot done, certainly. Although I'm sure not enough to meet Gabriel's standards, but… Well, a very productive four years, if I do say so myself."

"Stellar."

"Had a fair bit of time to do all of the new tourist-y things as well, which was rather fun. I hadn't been on a world tour since, oh gosh, probably since the 1800s. The Great Wall of China has been done up quite a lot - I can't say I approve in terms of the look of the thing, but it has made it an awful lot safer. And Japan has changed a great deal since I last visited. Pyramids are looking a bit worse for wear, but they are quite old, I suppose."

"You had a good time, then?"

"Quite. Quite good. Yes. It was- … Productive. Interesting. Um."

"Great. Good. You didn't- I mean. Yeah. No. Good."

"Went to a wonderful restaurant in Guadalajara. You would have loved it."

Crowley tilted his head. "Oh, yeah?"

Aziraphale nodded. "Mm. Whilst I was there I kept thinking, oh, Crowley would love it here. Beautiful little place, it was."

"I'll have to check it out. Next time I'm in- Where did you say?"

"Guadalajara."

"Right."

"Oh!" Aziraphale chirped, making Crowley lean back in his seat. "I almost forgot!" He reached down under the table and brought up a Marks and Spencer's carrier bag. "I brought some things back for you!"

An expression passed over Crowley's face that Aziraphale found difficult to pin down. He wasn't sure he wanted to. Suddenly bringing Crowley back souvenirs from his trip didn't feel like such a reasonable thing to do. It was feeling decidedly _not_ like A Good Idea. At the time, whilst he was away, it had seemed a perfectly acceptable thing to do. And, more importantly, it had helped him to silence that little voice in his head always muttering about how much more fun all of this would be if Crowley were here.

"For me?" Crowley asked.

"Um, yes. Um. Well, it's not much, obviously. Nothing very… Um." Aziraphale ran out of words and so replaced them with just handing the bag over to Crowley.

The Demon took it carefully. His expression changed to a more easily readable mix of curiosity and amusement as he reached into the bag and began pulling out the various items within.

"It's mostly just local alcoholic drinks. Nothing very interesting, I'm afraid," Aziraphale muttered anxiously as Crowley inspected the bottle of _Alchermes_ Aziraphale had picked up in Tuscany.

"Alcohol is _always_ interesting, angel. Especially good stuff like this. This is- It's- Ngk- Thanks."

"Don't mention it, it's really not- It's nothing."

"Yeah, no, of course-" Crowley stopped mid sentence and frowned as he removed the last tiny item from the bag.

Aziraphale winced. He'd forgotten about that. Oh dear.

"What's this?" Crowley said, holding up a small, white and blue ceramic cup in front of his face and carefully turning it around in his hands.

"Its, um, it's an _ochoko_," Aziraphale said. "A sake cup. Thought it made a nice set, what with the sake I brought back for you, but, I'm afraid I dropped it, so it has a rather nasty crack down the side of. I doubt it will hold any liquid. Purely ornamental, now. Um."

Crowley pushed his sunglasses up on to his head and squinted, closely inspecting the tiny and unuseable cup.

"I, uh, I decorated it myself," Aziraphale continued, trying to keep his tone light and casual but failing miserably. "Attended a few classes on ceramic art whilst in Kyoto. Jolly good fun, although I can't say I have any talent for it."

"You made this?"

"Yes. Well, no, I mean I only painted it. I did try a few pottery classes but I just couldn't get the knack. Not that I really found the knack for painting, either, but..." he trailed off.

Crowley's mouth was hanging ever so slightly ajar, and his gaze kept flickering back and forth between Aziraphale and the little cup.

"It's got a snake on it," he said.

"Yes!" Aziraphale replied, pleased that his intended decoration had proven recognisable. "Well, I suppose one doesn't need an awful lot of talent to draw a snake. As animal motifs go, it is one of the easier ones. Which is rather convenient, really, given that- Um. Snakes do make for quite an elegant pattern, as well. I don't have the talent to do them properly, with all the little scales and everything but... Well. I'm glad you can tell what it is supposed to be."

"Wh- Whuh- What- Uh- It's- I- Ngk- It's-" Crowley blinked. "What's the, uh- Is that kanji?"

Aziraphale brightened at the opportunity to show off some of his extremely limited Japanese knowledge.

"Ah! Yes! This one here," he said leaning over the table and pointing at the first character on the cup, "is _hebi_. It means _snake_."

"Oh, does it?" Crowley said,weakly. "What about the other one? What's this one say?"

Aziraphale hesitated and tried not to openly grimace.

"Um. Well. You see, I don't know very much Japanese. Very limited vocabulary."

"You know more than me."

"Hah. Barely, I'm sure."

"What's it say?"

"Uh. Well, um, that one is pronounced _tenshi_."

"Tenshi?"

"Mmhm."

"And that means…?"

"Uh. It uh, it means, um… _Angel._"

The little poise Crowley had regained dissipated with a vengeance. "Ngk," he said.

"I know, it's silly. Don't know many kanji characters, '_Serpent'_ and '_Angel_' were the only ones I could recall from memory. Well, those and _pickled plum rice ball_, but that didn't seem quite as appropriate. Um. You don't have to take it. Silly little thing, really, not your style at all. I'll just-"

Aziraphale reached across to take the cup from Crowley's hand, only to be met with a fierce glare and a literal slap on the wrist as the Demon swatted him away. His glasses slid off of his head and fell with a small thud onto his nose.

"Oh no you don't," he said. "Can't take back _gifts_, angel."

"Oh. Right. Quite. Sorry."

Crowely pushed his glasses back up to a more comfortable position and sniffed.

"So, are we ordering anything, or just sitting here? And I want to hear more about Japan. I haven't been there since the early Edo era, get the impression it's changed a bit since then. How did you find it? Worth a visit?"

"Oh, yes, Tokyo in particular has changed _drastically_, my dear boy. Although many of the rural areas aren't so different, even now, although I suppose that's the same everywhere. It is definitely worth a visit, _especially_ for the restaurants. Have you tried sushi? It's _scrumptious_."

Crowley grinned and leaned forward on his elbows as he listened to the Angel talk.

Yes, Aziraphale was very, very pleased to be home.


	18. 18 Misfit

Another joke fell flat.

A sea of blank and mildly disapproving faces stared back at him in silence. Not even a polite smile or nervous laugh to pierce the unrelenting awkwardness.

Maybe they just didn't feel awkward. Maybe no one else felt awkward. Maybe awkwardness wasn't a feeling felt by the disdainful. Maybe it was a sensation reserved solely for the disdained. Try as he might, he could never quite_ fit in. _He never quite managed to hit the required notes, never quite captured the preferred type of charm, and never ever seemed to tell the right kind of jokes.

When he'd said that line in front of Crowley, who had reluctantly agreed to be his practice audience a few days earlier, the Demon had laughed until he nearly choked on his coffee. In fact, Crowley had shown entirely more enthusiasm all by himself than this entire conference room full of Angels were managing all together.

He wished Crowley were here now. Or, rather, he wished that he _weren't._

Aziraphale was not having a very good day.

He rarely had good days when obliged to return to Heaven for "team meetings" or for "progress reports". He especially did not have good days during the Quarterly Conferences.

Right now Aziraphale was standing at a podium in front of an auditorium full of Angels with celestial ipads and expressions which vacillated between bland disinterest and supercilious condescension. An auditorium full of Angels who clearly didn't want to be listening to his painstakingly prepared presentation any more than he wanted to be giving it.

"Um. Yes. Well, um, as I was saying, the current state of Earth affairs is actually rather interesting. There are still quite a lot of wars going on; you'd have thought they'd have learned after that last big one, but evidently not. Um. But a, um, an interesting social revolution has taken hold across quite a few countries which is predominantly focused on freedom and love. Whilst on the surface this so-called "counter-culture" movement appears somewhat, um, dissolute, it is actually, I believe, quite a force for Good, and-"

"As fascinating as this all is, Aziraphale," Gabriel cut in, shimmering onto the stage with a patronising smile and zero regard for what Aziraphale considered to be good manners, "we _ are _quite pressed for time… If you could-" he made a squinching gesture with his thumbs and forefingers, "wrap it up, jump straight to the more vital statistics regarding Our global influence versus Hell's, that would be _great _. And, of course, I'll make sure that your very _thorough _slides and notes are made available to anyone who has further interest in them. Which I'm sure they will." He squeezed Aziraphale's shoulder encouragingly.

Aziraphale mustered up a dead-eyed smile and nodded dutifully. Gabriel dissolved back into the wings of the stage and, with a small sigh, Aziraphale skipped to the end of his talk. He listlessly listed off the relevant facts and figures to the room filled with ambivalent Angels, then wrapped it up, collected his notes, and shuffled off of the stage to sparse and half-hearted applause. He'd spent three weeks painstakingly putting together that presentation. He'd barely gotten through half of it.

Oh well. At least it was over now. Aziraphale found a seat in the audience and began to think up plausible excuses for leaving early.

Next on the Speakers Itinerary List were two Angels whose names Aziraphale didn't recognise, apparently from the Earth Observation Department. They were late. Rather than changing the set order, everyone in the hall was simply thanked for their patience, and were offered an apology for the fact that the presentations would now be finishing even later to accommodate the delay.

Aziraphale couldn't help but be somewhat irked by this. Why did they have to rush him off of the stage when they didn't even know _where _the next speakers _were _? He could have gotten through another entire quarter of his presentation by now.

The group of polished and professional Angels sitting near Aziraphale were all conversing with each other, but no one made any attempt to involve him. Aziraphale wasn't sure whether that was annoying or relieving, and ended up feeling an unpleasant mixture of both. After another fifteen minutes of this, and still no sign of the next speakers, Aziraphale decided to make a break for it. He excused himself to the Angels around him, which he really needn't have bothered doing as aside from a few confused glances no one paid him any attention whatsoever, and walked away.

Aziraphale stepped out into the cool, quiet, and brightly lit hallway and took a deep breath, closing his eyes and taking a moment to re-centre himself.

His relative peace was soon broken, however, by the sound of voices from down the hall. They sounded stressed.

"No, _you _wait for _us _," an irritated voice with a difficult to place accent complained loudly. "Zoph spent _ages _on this, and I'm not gonna let it get trashed 'cos some impatient Usher with clumsy sausage-fingers is trying to rush us. They can all bloody well wait. We're already late, a few more minutes won't make much difference."

Aziraphale's curiosity got the better of him. He peeked around the corner.

The group making all the noise consisted of a very irritated looking Usher, two somewhat shabby looking Angels (one of whom appeared to be wearing Converse trainers), and an extremely large and unwieldy diorama predominantly made of paper-mache, cardboard, and glitter glue, and which appeared to depict, in a bright and cheerful fashion, the bombing of Hiroshima.

Aziraphale tilted his head and frowned.

"Pen, stop harassing the guy. It's not his fault, he's just gonna get it in the neck if he doesn't hurry us up, right, man?"

The Usher just scowled.

"Look, dude, we're_ sorry, _aight? We were actually super organised this time, I swear. But then, like, out of _nowhere _it was suddenly 11:30, and like, I hadn't even finished getting_dressed _, and the diorama was still in the basement, and then the _elevators _stopped working, and-"

"Zo Zo Zo Zo! Pay attention, bro, seriously you nearly tipped the goddamned thing over! Oops sorry. Language. Too much MTV. Hah."

"Who was on before us, anyway? Have they had to, like, stall the audience? Has it devolved into a sort of improv-y _Whose Line Is It Anyway? _situation? We'll have to send them a _Sorry We Made You Improvise In Front Of Michael _card. I wonder if they like glitter. No, that's stupid. Who doesn't like glitter? It's _glitter! _Who are we fucking over by being late, then, Mister Usher?"

"No one important," Aziraphale heard the Usher say. "Just that Angel who is assigned to Earth. Ezraphil or something. You didn't miss much."

Aziraphale winced. Lovely. Always nice to be appreciated.

Aziraphale turned to walk away in the opposite direction and out of the nearest exit with as much alacrity as he could muster, when he was stopped in his tracks by dual yelps.

"_WHAT!" _Two voices squeaked in unison.

"Do you mean _Aziraphale?! _" One of them said excitedly.

"Yeah. That's it. Why? Do you know him?"

"_Hah! _I _wish _! Oh my _god _, Zoph. _Aziraphale _was on _before _us!"

"Noooooooo!" The other one whined. "Oh, I didn't even know he was _speaking _at this conference! Was his name on the flyer thing? Was it? I swear it wasn't. Oh my _god _this _sucks _!"

"Oh shit, we made him have to stall."

"Oh no. Oh. Oh, sorry Aziraphale. Oh, Pen, we _suck _."

"What did he talk about? Is he still in there? Do you think we might be able to catch him or did he already leave? Was his talk recorded?"

"I don't know," replied the Usher grumpily, "and I don't care."

"Oh, lovely. Charming. You, bro, have literally zero taste. Aziraphale is _radical _."

"Totally copacetic."

"Seriously dope."

"I bet he's already gone."

"Just our luck."

"What do you think he talked about? I bet it was super awesome."

"Woaaah go careful dude, the mushroom cloud is looking a bit wobbly, stop tilting it, Pen."

"Oi, Usher, can you _help _a bit? Grab that back corner. And don't _rush _it, we're nearly there now."

"Ahhh door door door door!"

"No, don't let go, stupid! It'll fall!"

"Someone needs open the door!"

"Yeah not _you _, you're like, the primary load bearer on that side. I'll _drop _it if you let go!"

Aziraphale peered tentatively back out from around the corner where he had been not _hiding _, exactly, but just… _standing _. And listening. And feeling a strange mixture of pleased and bewildered.

"I'll get it for you," he said the the trio.

"Ah, thanks dude, totally rad of you, owe you one ye- Oh my god. Pen. Pen. Pen. Oh my god."

The Angel evidently called Pen gasped.

"Oh my god."

Aziraphale smiled awkwardly. It was a much nicer type of awkward than the awkward in the auditorium, though.

"Here you go," he said as he pulled open the door.

For a moment the two Angels, much to the Usher's visible irritation, stood frozen to the spot.

"Uh- uh- uh- um- awsjdfksdjghksgksldgk-" the taller one said.

The shorter one just squeaked.

"Um, good luck with you presentation," Aziraphale said, kindly. He nodded at the elaborate diorama. "I like all the, uh, glitter."

The curly-haired Angel nodded rapidly, and was just beginning to get themselves together enough to say something when Michael marched through the open door with much tsk-ing and tutting.

"Where in Heaven's name have you two been? Hurry up!"

"Uh-"

"No, but-"

"_Now!" _Michael hissed through her teeth.

The two Angels whimpered and glanced at one another for reassurance.

"Yep. Coming. Sorry Michael."

"Don't be sorry, just _move _. We're already over thirty minutes late, this is not acceptable."

Michael pushed behind them and began physically shooing them into the auditorium.

"We love you," one of the Angels whispered as they were hurried through the door Aziraphale was still holding open.

"Seriously, like, you have no idea, like-" the other one began, before being pushed along and out of talking distance.

"Absolute nightmare, those two. That's the last time _they _will be invited to speak, if I have anything to say about it" Michael said, not so much to Aziraphale as at him. She narrowed her eyes and looked him up and down. "Are you leaving?"

Aziraphale smiled nervously and started to get flustered.

"Oh, yes, well, um, you see, the thing is-"

"Fine. Make sure to leave positive feedback in the conference memo book. It helps our figures. Safe travels."

And with that, Michael pulled the door closed behind her, leaving Aziraphale standing alone in the hallway.

"Right then," he said, and then he left.

He did however pause to leave a note in the memo book. A bit petty, he thought, but he was still annoyed about having his presentation cut short. Crowley, at least, found it all extremely entertaining when Aziraphale recounted the day's events to him later that evening on the telephone. And he'd sounded rather proud of the note, too, which Aziraphale knew he shouldn't be so pleased over - Demons approving of one's actions was hardly something to write home about. Nevertheless.

_Particularly enjoyed the Earth Obs. Dept.'s presentation. Good use of diorama. Excellent use of glitter. Best talk of the conference, should be a staple of every event. _

Well. Misfits had to stick together, after all.


	19. 19 Sling

"Oh dear," Aziraphale muttered to himself as the shepherd boy stepped out into the space between the two camps now designated for champions' combat. He didn't look very much like a champion. Aziraphale wasn't expecting this to end well.

"Oh dear indeed," a familiar voice said.

Aziraphale turned to face the red-haired human-shaped creature now standing beside him.

"Hello Crawly," he said with a tone lightly censorious but not unfriendly. "You're here too, then?"

"Yeah, well, you know how it is. Big important battles always garner attention down below. And then they want me to go and get involved, so I have to put in an appearance or go to the trouble of explaining why I wasn't there and- Is that kid really going to try to fight that giant of a man dressed like that?"

"Mmhm… I did try to dissuade Saul but that man is irrationally stubborn sometimes."

"You're here with the King's entourage, then?"

"Well, yes, for the time being, anyway. Might have to make a little bit of a dash for it after this, though. Do you know they are wagering the entire war on the result of this one on one combat?"

"They're not?"

"They are."

"Saul is placing the fate of his entire kingdom on that child in a short tunic? But he doesn't even have a sword."

"I know," Aziraphale said, shaking his head.

"Oh dear," Crawly said.

"Quite."

They watched as the champion called Goliath bellowed to the crowd of soldiers and politicians and statesmen watching from the sidelines with bated breath.

"Can't you, you know, do something?" Crawly asked, bobbing her head as she tried to keep an eye on the combatants through the massing crowds.

"Me? What can I do?"

"I don't know, kill the big bugger or something?"

"Crawly, I am an Angel. I don't kill people.

"Tell that to the rest of your lot…" Crawly muttered.

"Pardon me?"

"Nothing. Well, look, can't you, I don't know, do something else then? You're supposed to be the _nice_ one. Give the kid a chance. Miracle him up a sword or something."

"I'm not certain that would do him any good…"

They both flinched as the shepherd boy narrowly avoided being cleaved in half by a clubbing blow from Goliath's greatsword.

"It just doesn't seem, you know, fair."

"The boy did volunteer."

"Ngk, oh, so, that makes it alright for him to get his head smashed in by a professional soldier then, does it?"

"I didn't say that. I don't like it any more than you do, Crawly…"

"What's he doing now? I can't see, all these bloody people in the way."

"I'm not sure. I think he's taken out a slingshot of some kind."

"Oh, this is really not going to end well. I don't want to watch this."

"He's taking aim…" Aziraphale commentated. "Oh! Oh, that was a close one. Almost lost a foot there."

Crawly grimaced.

""Aziraphale, don't you think you should, ngk, you know, _get out of here whilst you still can_? Regardless of how this ends, no one is going to be happy, and if you are associated with the King's court you probably won't-"

"Oh, good Lord!" Aziraphale gasped, grabbing Crawly's sleeve.

"What?!"

"He hit him! Right between the eyes!"

"What? Who? Who hit who?"

"The boy! David, the shepherd boy! He hit Goliath in the head with a pebble from his sling!"

"Get out!" Crawly stood up on tiptoes to look over the crowd. "Bloody hell. He really did."

"I don't think he's dead though, just dazed…"

"What did you say the kid's name was? David?"

"Yes, David. Plays the lyre beautifully. That's why he's here, you know, he's not even with the army. I think he's rather in love with Saul's son."

"Oh?"

"They're inseparable. it's quite sweet actually."

"Sounds it. So, what do you think he'll do now?"

"I imagine he'll show clemency to his fallen opponent."

"You reckon?"

"Well, it'd be the noble thing to do, wouldn't it? Inspire both sides to lay down their arms, put old grievances aside, beat their swords into ploughshares-"

"He just cut his head off."

"Ah."

Crawly and Aziraphale watched as Goliath's head, now short one body, was held aloft to raucous whoops and cheers from one side of the combat arena, and stunned silence from the other.

"So that's it then? War over?" Crawly asked, skeptically.

"I doubt it will be as simple as that."

"Rarely is."

Aziraphale nodded, absently.

"Well, I'm going to get out of here before it all kicks off," Crawly said with a distracted sigh.

"I suppose I should do the same, really."

"Probably a good idea."

"Which way are you heading?"

"Oh, I don't know. Alba Longa, perhaps."

"I was thinking of Greece."

"Same direction, isn't it?"

"Think so."

"Did you know sheep can form lifelong friendships?" Crawly said to Aziraphale as they turned to leave.

"I didn't know that. How do you know that?"

"Been hanging out with a lot of shepherds lately. Interesting people, shepherds."

"So it would seem."

"I knew a shepherd once who fought off a _bear_ with nothing more than a slingshot."

"I knew a shepherd once who fought off a _bear _with nothing more than a slingshot..."

"Crawly…"

"What? What? Stop looking at me like that."

"Nothing," Aziraphale said.

"Oh, shut up."

The Angel and the Demon fell into step together as they walked away from the battlefield.


	20. 20 Tread

"I just feel as though- As though I've been treading water for so very long that I've forgotten how to swim."

Aziraphale was sat with his feet curled under him on the sofa across from Crowley. They were both on the way to getting very, very drunk. It had been six months to the day since _The-Little-Apocalypse-That-Couldn't_, and the Angel and the Demon were still only just coming to terms with the fact that they were, for the time being at least, being Left Alone. And with the fact that they were, really and truly, being left alone _together_.

Crowley leaned across the coffee table and refilled his glass with a not-too-excellent bottle of Hesperia Merlot that he didn't care enough about to miracle into something better.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"Oh I don't know. Doesn't matter." The Angel reached for his own glass on the end table, and Crowley topped it up for him. Aziraphale stared at it and frowned. "It's all just so- so-... Oh, it doesn't matter."

"Right," Crowley said.

"I have to- to- to choose a _direction_, dear boy, d'you see what I mean?"

"Yeah. No. What?"

"I should have done, before. I wanted to. To swim. With the _water._ But I didn't kick hard enough, or- But that was me _trying, _my dear, you must understand. I thought I had a life…float? Raft? Those orange inflatable things- Anyway, I thought I had one of those, but it was an _anchor_, you see, and so I couldn't not do anything but merely tread, if you catch my drift."

Crowley's eyebrows pulled together as he tried and failed to follow the Angel's meaning.

"You're drunk."

"So are you, my dear, dear Crowley, but tomorrow you shall be sober, and I shall still be incredibly, _ineffably_, stupid."

"Right."

"S'Oscar Wilde. Well, almost."

"Yeah... What are you on about, angel?"

"Crowley, do you know something?" Aziraphale asked suddenly, twisting in his seat to face Crowley square on.

"Mnngghgnyeah," Crowley nodded thoughtfully, "I know that koalas have fingerprints that look just like human fingerprints."

Aziraphale blinked. "Really?"

"Yeah, their fingerprints are so similar to humans' that they have been mixed up at crime scenes."

"Why are koalas being allowed into crime scenes?"

Crowley thought about this. "Crimes at a zoo, maybe? Or in the… Where do koalas live? The outback?"

"How do they know the koalas _weren't_ the criminals?" Aziraphale postulated. "They are a type of bear, aren't they? Don't bears kill people to steal their food, or something? I'm sure I remember reading about it somewhere...You're supposed to…" The Angel pointed upwards and moved his hands in a way that Crowley guessed, correctly, was supposed to signify tying a knot, "...Put your… sandwiches in a tree, or… something."

"Marsupials."

"Sandwiches, marsupials, all of it. Got to go up. Ropes."

"No, no, I mean, mmmnnn- Koalas. Not bears. Marsupials. On account of they… Something to do with kangaroos."

"Nasty buggers, kangaroos."

"There you go then. That's why they are at crime scenes."

"Who are?"

"Fingerprints."

"Oh, yes."

Aziraphale took another clumsy sip of his wine and grimaced. "This is jolly bad wine, Crowley."

"Mmyeah, it's not great, is it."

"Oh! Yes! That was what I was saying!"

"What?"

"...No, wait, it's gone again."

"You are very, very drunk, angel."

"So are you, but- _oh!_ I remember what I was going to say! Because I need to stop treading water. That was it. Staying in the same place. _Action_! So I was going to tell you how much I love you."

The Demon stared at the Angel sitting across from him.

"Because I _do_ love you, Crowley."

Crowley sighed and rolled his eyes with his whole head.

"I love you an awful, awful lot, and I have been so very, very stupid for such a long time, but It's okay now, because I don't have to deny it anymore. Because, my dear, _I love you_."

"Not this again, Aziraphale..."

"No. No, because it's _important_, Crowley. You need to _know_."

"I do know, Aziraphale."

"But do you _really_ know?"

"Yes, I really know. This is the fifteenth time you've told me this _this week_. It's the second time _this evening_…"

"Crowley, you are _lovely_, did you know that?"

"So you keep telling me."

"And _brave_."

"Yep."

"And _clever_."

"...Well, yes, I _am_ clever. And cool. Don't forget cool."

"And _nice_."

"Tell the whole blessed world, why don't you…"

"And I need to _swim_, now, because I don't have an anchor, which is actually a good thing. And I am going to swim in _your_ direction, dear boy." Aziraphale emphasised his point by leaning across and poking Crowley's shoulder.

"Yeah, alright," Crowley said, rubbing his arm where the Angel had jabbed it. His attempt at appearing taciturn and nonchalant was being chronically undermined by the laughter in his eyes and the twitching corners of his mouth. Aziraphale was maddeningly and irritatingly demonstrative when he got like this, but he was also undeniably endearing, and extremely entertaining.

"But Crowley," Aziraphale said, still leaning precariously in the Demon's direction like an inebriated and angelic Tower of Pisa, "do you think you love _me_, dearheart?"

"I _think_ you're an idiot, angel. A very drunk idiot."

Aziraphale looked up at him with wide eyes, and Crowley sighed.

"Oh, fine. Yes. I- Yes. Okay? Yes. Yes, you're my best friend, and you're ridiculous, and infuriating, and an embarrassingly maudlin drunk, and I love you. Happy now?"

Aziraphale beamed. "Oh, _good_. Now, did you know that rhionser- Rhinaster- _rhinos_ can't swim?"

"Can they not?"

"No. And they the reason that there are unicorns in the bible. Translation error."

"I thought that was because of the actual unicorns."

"No. Rhinos."

"I liked unicorns."

"I like _you_."

"Yeah, alright, angel, I get the point..." Crowley groaned. "That wasn't a unicorn pun."

"What?"

"The point…? Get the… -Unicorn horn, point…-Nevermind."

Aziraphale smiled at him then, a very soft, bright, melting kind of a smile that somehow said _I love you_ far more than any words ever could have. The same smile Aziraphale had been giving him for centuries.

And Crowley smiled back.


	21. 21 Treasure

Adam had replaced the Bookshop. He had replaced the Bentley. He had brought back to life people who died and shouldn't have, and people who died and possibly deserved it. He put the world back the way it was, the way it _had been _before, more or less. He didn't _make _the world forget so much as give everyone in it the _option _to, if they so chose. Most people did. The Apocalypse, even one that didn't quite make it to the finish line, wasn't something that most people wanted to remember.

But, repaired as everything was, it still wasn't quite_ right _. Everything wasn't quite _exactly _the same as it had been before. Things had changed.

Crowley was sitting in his Bentley, outside of his Mayfair flat. Crowley was frowning. Crowley was _inspecting_.

'No, I'm telling you, angel, it might look the same _to you_, but there's something not right about it,' Crowley said, neck bent at an uncomfortable angle as he tried to keep his mobile phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear. '-No. No, no angel, I'm not saying you didn't _check_ the car, I'm just saying- No, it _looks_ the same, that's the point. It _looks_ the same to me, too, sort of, but-'

Crowley continued to flip switches at random and rifle through the glove compartments. As he leaned across the seat to take a look in the side pockets of the passenger door, the phone slipped from his admittedly loose unsturdy grasp and tumbled down beneath the passenger seat.

'Argh! Oh bloody hell. One sec, Aziraphale,' he called out in the general direction of where the phone had fallen. 'I dropped the bloody-' He could hear Aziraphale still talking, although he couldn't tell what he was saying. 'Angel, I said I've dropped the- Oh, he isn't listening. Nnngghhfff.'

Crowley grunted as he irritatedly pawed beneath the seat to try and find his phone. He could just about see the screen's light glowing in the shadows, but only barely. It must have wedged itself into an unfeasibly awkward position.  
'Just my luck…' Crowley muttered to himself as he twisted his head to the side and eased his shoulder down to the floor in an attempt to get himself a little more reach under the damn seat.

'_ Hello _, what's this?' he said, as his fingers brushed against what felt like a sheet of paper. He gave it an experimental tug. He could feel, or at least he thought he could feel, that his phone must be sitting on top of it. Gently, so as not to just pull the sheet out from under it, he pulled the paper out from beneath the seat, dragging his phone along with it.

'Hah, got you!' Crowley hissed triumphantly as he grabbed his phone and hoisted himself back up to a less ungainly position. He pressed the phone back against his ear.

'Aziraphale? You still there?- No, yeah, yeah, yeah- No, I'm fine, I just- No,I just dropped my phone. … Yeah it fell under the bloody seat. … No, it's fine. I'm fine- Look, hang on, I- _Angel _\- Ugh, hang on, I'm gonna put you on loudspeaker. … _Loudspeaker _-" Crowley sighed. He clicked the call onto speakerphone and propped it up on the dashboard.

_'What is loudspeaker?' _Aziraphale's voice echoed out into the car.

'Don't worry, doesn't matter. What were you saying?'

'_ Oh, yes. Well, the thing is, the bookshop isn't quite… Well, it's certainly not how I left it, put it that way. And I don't just mean the extra first editions of children's books, we both noticed those already, but something else… I can't quite put my finger on it. Little things that just seem _off _somehow. I thought perhaps it was merely, well, you know, me being, well… _ overwhelmed _by everything, but I don't think that's it. Something is definitely different. Something almost _metaphysical _, if that makes sense.'_

'Mm, I think I know what you mean…'Crowley trailed off as his attention wandered. He found himself leaning over to pick up the paper which had so conveniently allowed him to retrieve his phone. He turned it over in his hands, and frowned.

'_ Hallo, what's this?' _Crowley heard Aziraphale saying through the tinny speaker. It barely filtered through to his upper conscious, though. He was too preoccupied with what he saw upon turning over the paper.

Drawn on one side with what was clearly a child's hand was a picture of two men. Or, at least, two men-shaped creatures. One was dressed in a stylish black suit, the other in a slightly less stylish, but still very nicely put together, cream suit with a tartan bow tie. They both had expansive wings stretching out across the page, and they were holding hands. Underneath the figures were the words _I reckon you can stop messin' around now. _

'Hm?' Crowley said, as his brain finally caught up with his ears and he became aware that Aziraphale had been speaking to him.

'_ I said I have just this moment found a picture, a child's drawing, on a bookshelf between _The Man Who Was Thursday _and _Emma _. Which is odd in itself as those certainly shouldn't be next to each other, that's what caught my attention-'_

'What?' Crowley said, shaking his head and still staring at the picture in his hands.

'_ Do pay attention, my dear. I found a drawing of-'_

'Let me guess. Of us?'

'I- What? Yes? How on Earth could you have-'

'I think I've got the same one. Just pulled it out from under my car seat.'

'_ What does yours look like?'_

''S'just a picture of you and me. Just sort of standing there. Didn't get my hair quite right.'

'_ How curious. Mine's the same. Except it also says " _Stuff that's written can always be crossed out" _along the bottom, beneath our feet.''_

'Oh,' said Crowley. 'Yeah? Mine says "_ I reckon you can stop messin' around now" _.'

The conversation slipped into a heavy silence.

'_ What do you think it means? _' Aziraphale asked, quietly.

'Dunno,' Crowley began. 'Could be a threat, Adam warning us to stop interfering with humanity. Or-'

'_ \- or he could be reminding us that we don't _have to, _anymore,' _Aziraphale finished.

'Yeah. Or that.'

Crowley drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

'_ I think I rather fancy a trip to the countryside, _' Aziraphale said.

'Oh. Yeah?'

_'Mmhm. Cotswolds perhaps?'_

'You're asking me?'

_'Shall we?'_

Crowley stared out at the grey and busy London streets. 'South Downs,' he replied simply. 'Ocean and hills, on the South Downs. And wetlands. S'quiet, too. And you can't beat chips on the beach.'

Crowley could hear the smile in Aziraphale's voice as he replied, '_ South Downs it is.'_

After another handful of silent moments, Crowley sighed.

'Do you want me to bring take-out over later, or would you rather go out somewhere?' he asked.

'_ Bring something back, I think.'_

'Alright.'

'_ We could watch that new BBC production of _Much Ado About Nothing _, if you feel like it? It's quite long, but I rather think we have a fair amount of free time on our hands, now.'_

'Yeah, I reckon we do, don't we? Sounds like a plan to me''

_'Jolly good. See you in a jiffy then. Mind how you go, dearheart. Pip-pip!'_

'Yeah. In a bit, angel,' he said with a smile, and hung up the phone. Crowley stared at the screen for a few moments, open on Aziraphale's entry in his contact list, the contact image still set to the default faceless silhouette.

Crowley took a photograph of the picture Adam had placed in the Bentley, attached it to Aziraphale's name in his phone, and grinned. Then he carefully folded up the photo and slid it into his wallet.

He may have lost his treasured Bentley, but Crowley reckoned he'd gotten something a lot more important in exchange. Something a lot _better _. He could live with it.

'Thanks, kid,' he said.

And then he drove away.


	22. 22 Ghost

**_The Ram Inn, Wotton-Under-Edge, England, four years before Armageddon..._**

_'Ouch!'_

'_Quiet_, angel,' Crowley hissed at Aziraphale as the angel rubbed his shin where it had caught on the window as he climbed through it.

'Crowley this is _ridiculous _. Why don't you just explain your situation to the gentleman who owns the building, we really don't need to be _breaking in _…'

Crowley scowled derisively. 'Oh, yeah, of course, I'll just knock on the front door and say "_Excuse me, but I think I left something of mine in the upper back room of your house, under the floorboards near the far wall, in, oh, around 1925, when it was still an Inn? Yes I do look remarkably good for my age, thank you. _"'

'You could have said your mother or father lost something here and you've come back to look for it.'

Crowley stopped moving and stared into the darkness. He said, 'Ngk.' Then he shook his head and said, 'Well, we're here now. Let's just get on with it.'

Aziraphale sighed. '_Fine _, let's just get it over with. I _knew _you were up to something. God forbid you just invite me to the Cotswolds with no ulterior motive. You are positively incorrigible.'

'You didn't have to come,' Crowley replied in hushed, irritated tones as he crept through the dark room whilst trying to avoid tripping over the copious clutter covering almost every surface, including the floor.

'Are you sure the owner is out?'

'Yeah. He unexpectedly won a trip to Edinburgh.'

'Hmmm…'

'Look, I needed him out of the house. You know the reputation this place has, most of that is down to him. I can't be bothered to spend two hours dealing with an elderly paranormal con artist, angel. I just want to find my ring, and get out as quickly as possible.'

'Why do you suddenly want this ring, now? And why did you leave it here?'

'Ugh, now is _really _not the time, angel.'

Aziraphale huffed but didn't press the issue. Whether he liked it or not, Crowley did have a point - they _were _here now, Aziraphale hadn't had to agree to this, and it really would be in their best interests to get whatever it was Crowley was after and get out as quickly as possible. Anyway, Aziraphale would have plenty of time to interrogate the demon later.

They made their way through the maze-like ground-floor rooms of the building, circling back on themselves twice before finally finding the stairs to the upper rooms. The staircase was narrow and creaky, and had a stuffed rams head ominously looming overhead.

They were halfway up the stairs when Aziraphale grabbed the back of Crowley's jacket and froze.

'I _heard _something,' he hissed in a nervous stage whisper.

Crowley looked back at the angel over his shoulder and rolled his eyes.

'For Heaven's sake, Aziraphale, _you _of all people should know that ghosts aren't real…'

Aziraphale tutted irritatedly. 'I heard _people _, Crowley…'

'No you didn't. No one's here,'

'I _heard something!'_

'Aziraphale, you're letting your imagination get away with you, just-'

A loud bang echoed through the hallway. Crowley pulled a face as Aziraphale glared at him.

'Yeah, okay, _maybe _there are people here.'

'Oh, good Lord, we're going to get arrested. I can't get arrested Crowley. Not _again _. They make you fill out almost as much paperwork for that as for _discorporation _…'

Crowley looked around hurriedly. 'No one's getting arrested angel. Look, come on. Let's just… We can hide.'

Aziraphale didn't think that this sounded like a particularly good idea, but, being as they were currently trapped on the stairs and with no idea how many people were in the house, or _where _they were, he couldn't think of anything any better. Yet, anyway. They could come up with a better one whilst they were hiding. In theory.

Crowley and Aziraphale darted up the stairs as quietly as they could, and nipped into a dark looking room at one end of the hall. Crowley carefully shut the door behind them, then leaned back against it.

'Why can't we just miracle out of here?' Aziraphale asked, suddenly coming to his senses.

'I _want _my _ring _,' Crowley hissed.

'Look, we can just come back some other time-'

Aziraphale stopped talking abruptly as heavy footsteps began walking up the stairs. _Multiple _heavy footsteps.

_' _-and you've got ley lines goin' straight through here, which could account for the unusually aggressive paranormal activities reported in this ancient building…'

Crowley growled petulantly and tossed his head. 'Argh, bloody _ghost hunters _!'

'Crowley, I really think we ought to-"

'Shhh!' Crowley hissed urgently, pressing his finger against Aziraphale's lips and pushing him backwards.

'Ah re-ree ton't tink tis is ress-ess-erry, Row-ree..' Aziraphale said, or tried to say, as Crowley ducked them both behind a floor length curtain at the other side of the room.

The door opened.

'And now we are entering _The Bishop's Room, _' a confident and showman-ish female voice announced, dramatically. 'This is known to be the most haunted room in this entire building. Guests and visitors throughout history have reported being _physically attacked _by supernatural entities in this room, furniture flying around, visons of a _Roman Centurion _and _Christian Monks_, even a _Shepherd boy and his Dog_, all within this very room…'

Aziraphale risked peeking out through a tiny gap in the curtain. A camera crew. _Wonderful._

'Now, Clive, can you tell us, do you sense anything in this room?'

Clive was a middle aged man with slicked back silver hair, a black suit, and a purple shirt with the top two buttons undone. He was bedecked in a lot of gemstone jewelry.

'Oh, oh Janet, love, ah can tell yah, ah am feelin' sohm kahnda presence in this room raight he'yah. Ahhh.. Oh aye, teh be shu'wah. Te be shu'wah, there're def'nately sohm uthah-wehl'dly creatures in this room wi' us raight nah…'

Aziraphale sensed Crowley rolling his eyes, and he tried not to giggle.

'Clive, can you try to make contact with these beings? Can you ask them why they are here?'

'_ 'm asking myself the same thing… _' Crowley whispered, only just audibly enough for Aziraphale to hear.

'Oh aye, ah ken try, Janet love. Ah ken-'

Clive suddenly stopped in his tracks and frowned. He blinked several times, then pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

'Clive? Are you sensing something, Clive?' Janet said, theatrically.

Clive waved her away. 'Hang on,' he said.

The cameramen looked at one another.

'No, this isn't…I'm getting something. But actually something, it's… Oh, god. Janet, this is weird… This isn't-' Clive's accent had inexplicably become that of an educated, upper-middle class southerner, rather than the somewhat hokey mish-mash of regional accents it had been dancing around with before

'Clive? What- Clive? Don't fuck around-'

'I'm getting something. _Actually _getting something, this is- I-'

'Don't be a dickhead, Clive, just do the usual spiel. Don't get weird on me,' Janet barked, unsympathetic to Clive, who now had his head in his hands.

'There are two beings here that are not of this earth… Two… Not men… But they appear as men. Or at least, most of the time, but... They are old._ Immeasurably _old and… Older than the _earth _? Oh, god, Janet, I don't like this. I knew we shouldn't have come here. This place is legitimate. This is the real deal. This is. Janet, we shouldn't have- Oh my _head…'_

Crowley and Aziraphale glanced at each other behind the curtain.

One of the cameramen moved to lower his camera, but Janet glared at him and gestured to keep rolling.

'Clive. Clive. Stay with us, Clive. Tell us what you see. What do they look like? Who _are _they?'

'They are… they are searching for something… They… They aren't supposed to be here, this isn't where… One of them, the first one, he is looking for something, something he lost a long time ago… The other one... he is here because… to _help _the first one. Because they are _friends, _but it's not, they aren't- _Oh! _'

'What do they look like, Clive? Give us a visual. Describe them to the camera.'

'Um… Um… It's- It's not clear… They are... They _appear _forty, fifty years old? But they are older, _so much older _… Blonde hair. One has blonde hair. Blonde hair and… The other has red hair. And… Sunglasses?'

'_Sunglasses?' _Janet scoffed, clearly unimpressed. Spirits with sunglasses did not sell television shows.

'They hide his _eyes _…' Clive whispered breathlessly. 'Yellow, inhuman _snake _eyes…'

Janet grinned like a shark. _That _was more like it.

Poor Clive began to sway on his feet. Aziraphale was beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable, and also extremely guilty. Occasionally, occult or ethereal creatures did have this kind of an affect on humans who possessed a higher than usual psychic talent. Generally Aziraphale hurried out of such humans' presence as quickly as possible to avoid causing them distress (and to avoid creating an awkward situation for himself), but that wasn't really an option, right now. He grimaced.

'Yes? Come on, Clive. What more can you tell us about these spirits? _Focus! _' demanded Janet impatiently.

'They're not- They're not _spirits _, exactly…' Clive muttered, eyes closed, face contorted. 'I don't know _what _they are… They are… I can sense… One of them is... I can feel a great sense of compassion… loyalty, justice… Protectiveness… He has such a strong aura of _love _about him. Yes, _love _, thats- Good gracious me…'

'Yes? Yes?'

'And…. And the other one has a tartan bow tie…'

'Oh _come off it,_' Crowley hissed. Aziraphale jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow and shh-ed him, but not soon enough.

Janet's head snapped round, straight in the direction of the curtains.

'Did you hear that?'

The cameramen looked at each other. Clive was still out of it.

Janet started walking towards the curtains, beckoning one of the cameramen to follow her.

She reached out her hand.

She hesitated.

She gritted her teeth

She pulled back the curtains.

'Um…' Aziraphale mumbled.

'_ Hi _,' Crowley drawled.

They both sheepishly waggled their fingers in a half-hearted wave.

The ghost-hunters stared at the Angel and the Demon. The Angel and the Demon stared at the ghost-hunters. Janet gaped at them open mouthed. So did the cameramen. Clive didn't, although he was blinking quite a lot.

Aziraphale side glanced at Crowley without moving his head. Crowley shrugged. Aziraphale made a _tsk _noise and snapped his fingers. Sparks flew from the two videocameras with an unhealthy fizz.

'Go on then, _do something _,' Aziraphale muttered at Crowley.

'Oh, for the love of- _Fine _.'

Crowley sighed, gave one last wearily sardonic look at the assembled humans, and then flash-transformed into a very toothy snake-ish sort of creature. He hissed with a sound like a thousand mentos sweets being dropped into a hundred bottles of soda.

Aziraphale was quite impressed with how quickly the ghost-hunters ran out of the building.

Crowley straightened his jacket lapels and cracked his neck. 'I hate doing that,' he complained. 'Always makes my neck feel too short when I turn back.'

'Well, it did the trick, well enough,' Aziraphale said. 'Now, _please _can we get out of here? There's an awful draft in here, it's giving me the chills.'

'Yeah alright, lets-' Crowley stopped mid-sentence then dashed out of the room and down the hallway. Aziraphale sighed and followed him, albeit at a much slower pace.

He found Crowley in a smaller room, on his hands and knees, reaching down under a floorboard near the wall.

'Aha!' he exclaimed, yanking his arm back out of the hole. He grimaced and poked out his tongue as he shook a surprised spider off of the back of his hand. 'Got it!'

He held up a slightly tarnished but nonetheless still very glittery art-deco style ring. Aziraphale reckoned it must have been diamond and platinum. It was rather impressive.

'What's so special about it?' he asked as Crowley unfolded himself back up to his feet.

'Hm?'

'That ring. You've gone to an awful lot of trouble to get it back. What is it, some historical artifact stolen from the Monaco royal family? Did it belong to someone terribly important to you, long dead?'

'What? No. I just like it.'

Aziraphale stared deadpan. 'Pardon me?'

'I like it. And I reckon art deco is going to come back into fashion soon. I couldn't remember exactly what it looked like, so I couldn't just miracle up a replica. I just remembered that I liked it, and this was the last place I had it.'

Aziraphale opened his mouth to protest, to complain, to emphasise how _utterly ridiculous_ that was. But then he didn't. Doing so seemed somewhat redundant.

'Oh,' he said.

'Right. Ready to go?' Crowley asked.

'Quite,' Aziraphale replied.

'Do you think anywhere will be open to get a drink?'

'Crowley, it's three in the morning.'

'And?'

'And this isn't London.'

'Is that a no, then?'

'Yes.'

'Right. Back to the hotel then.'

_That was entertaining._

_Much more fun than the usual ghost-hunting escapades._

_Oi loiked it when 'ee made 'imself look loike a snake. That wuz brilliant _. _Oi reckon oi'll ad that to moi rep'err'twaree._

_It's pronounced _repertoire_, Jake._

_Yer an ass, Caecillius._

_Now, now. Let's not be uncivil, _said the Monk.

_Sorry Brother Gilbert, _said the Roman Centurion.

_Aye, sorry about that, n'that,_ said the Shepherd Boy.

_Woof _, said the Dog.


	23. 23 Ancient

Mr Cortese bounced on his heels happily and smiled. He had a lesson planned for today that he was quite sure would finally succeed in capturing young master Warlock's interests, and getting the boy to engage with his studies in a more enthusiastic manner. It was going to be a _good _lesson. My Cortese was rather looking forward to it.

Mr Harrison was feeling decidedly _less_ enthusiastic. He leaned back against the desk at the front of the small classroom with a sullen slouch and sipped at his coffee in silence. He may have let Mr Cortsese convince him into teaching this stupid lesson, but he didn't have to _enjoy_ it.

'Okay, Warlock my lad,' Mr Cortese said brightly as Warlock slunk back into the classroom from his lunch break and dumped himself into his seat with a pout, 'we have a rather fun lesson planned for you this afternoon! I know you aren't particularly fond of History, but I have a feeling you will change your mind after today's lesson!'  
Warlock just sat and sulked. Mr Harrison could see that Warlock was surreptitiously tapping away at his phone under the desk.

'Oi,' Mr Harrison snapped, 'pay attention when Mr Cortese is talking to you, kid. What'd I tell you? _General _disobedience is good, but _pay attention to me and Mr Cortese_. Alright?'

Warlock rolled his eyes and shoved his phone into his pocket melodramatically.

'Um. Yes. Right. Thank you, Anthony, um. Where was I? Oh, yes, as I was saying we have a bit of a different lesson planned for you today, my boy. First of all we are going to watch a short documentary on the Egyptians, and then we will do an activity based on it after. All sounding rather usual so far, yes? A little dull, even?'

Mr Cortese's eyes glittered in much the same way as a bad magician's would shortly before cutting his long-suffering assistant in half. '_ Well _, I am sure you will find it a lot _more interesting _when I show you what the documentary is…'

He paused for dramatic effect, and when his audience didn't react he ploughed on regardless. He jabbed at the television remote control until the screen whoosed from black to black-with-writing-on.

The title of the documentary lit up the screen.

**_Ancient Aliens_**

Mr Cortese beamed.

'I stumbled across this quite by accident, actually' he said, rifling through his lesson notes to find the question sheet he had prepared. 'Mr Harrison let me borrow his _Netflix _account to watch _Downton Abbey _and I somehow ended up accidentally clicking on this instead, and I have to say it is _extremely _entertaining. The history is rather sound too, aside from all of the, um, well, _alien _bits. But I thought it would be quite a good exercise in making historical arguments and using established facts to generate new hypotheses regarding the past and-'

Mr Cortese realised that he was losing the room. Warlock was staring at the ceiling, and Mr Harrison was staring into space.

'Um. Right. Shall we watch it, then?'

Mr Cortese lowered the lights, and he and Mr Harrison pulled up chairs alongside Warlock. Mr Harrison swung his feet up onto the desk and leaned back on his chair, earning himself a glare from Mr Cortese. Warlock giggled when Mr Harrison sighed and swung his feet back down.

After the episode had finished, Mr Cortese turned the lights back up and turned to the class. _The class _consisting of Warlock, and Anthony Harrison, who had his feet back on the table and who clearly had his eyes shut behind his dark glasses. Mr Cortese cleared his throat loudly.

'Well, wasn't that _fun _?' he said, collecting the activity packs from the main desk and depositing copies of the sheets in front of both Warlock and Mr Harrison.

'It was _ridiculous _, ang- Ezra. Is what it was. Egypt was _actually _interesting, why do people feel the need to jazz it up with dramatic music and quick-cut shots and bloody _aliens _? It's stupid.'

'It was quite stupid,' Warlock agreed.

'No, but that's the _point_,' Mr Cortese protested. 'It's _fascinating _, the way humans take these unrelated facts and weave them together to create new narratives… It's actually somewhat akin to books of prophecy, you know. The value isn't in the surface offerings, but in what you can learn when you look _below _the surface. Treating the prophecies, or, of course, the _Ancient Aliens _documentaries as cultural artefacts _in and of themselves _… It's awfully interesting.'

'I liked the bits with the electric crystals. Can crystals really conduct electricity?' Warlock asked.

'Yeah, right, I hear what you are saying, Ezra, but, I mean- Just- _No _. It's not interesting, is it? They just lie. That's not interesting. And they don't _just _lie, but they cut up quotes from actual anthropologists and archaeologists and historians and take them completely out of context. No respect for the truth. How is that interesting?'

'It's the motivation _behind _it that is interesting, dear boy. That these wild theories find such an audience. That the facts _can _in fact be used to substantiate, quite convincingly, arguments which are patently untrue! It's interesting precisely because it is so ridiculous. If it were any less ridiculous, the impact wouldn't be at all the same.'

'But who needs to be taught _that _?' Mr Harrison retorted. 'We all know that facts can be manipulated, politicians do it all the time.'

'Tsk, rather cynical, my dea- erm, Anthony.'

'It's not, and you know it. But my point is, everyone already _knows _that this happens. _Ancient Aliens _is just a really un-subtle and cack-handed version of it. Teach the boy about_actual _human examples of real-world fact manipulation, if that's what this little exercise is meant to teach him.'

Warlock pulled his phone out of his pocket and began playing _Flappy Bird._

'But you see _that _is exactly what I am getting at! _Ancient Aliens _, particularly _because _it is so unsubtle, is a perfect beginner's tool for identifying and parsing biases and straw-men and other such rhetorical devices. It lays everything out so clearly. Whilst also, I might add, containing a fair bit of historically sound information as well.'

Mr Harrison thought about this. 'I can't say I'm completely convinced, but let's run with it. What's the activity, then?' He frowned at Warlock. 'Oi! Phone away, kid.'

'I thought we could put together _our own_ _Ancient Aliens_ hypothesis! Choose something in history, and find ways to prove that it was in fact orchestrated by extraterrestrials.'

'_Extraterrestrials _,' Mr Harrison said, rolling the word around in his mouth. ' _That's _an interesting word, isn't it?'

'Why is it?' asked Mr Cortese, distrusting the mischief playing out in his colleagues voice.

'Well. It isn't very _specific _, is it? Not like Martian, or Spaceman, or anything. Just _extra _and _terrestrial. _Do you know what that word means, Warlock? From the Latin?'

Warlock sighed and replied in a rote, plodding voice, '"_extra" _meaning "_o__utside of, beyond, or outwards from" _and "_t__errestrial" _meaning "_of__ the earth'"._'

_' _Perfect, gold star,' Mr Harrison said, turning his attention back to Mr Cortese. 'So, what it really means is just _something not of the Earth _.'

Mr Cortese frowned. '_Anthony…'_

'What? I'm just saying. You know. _Maybe _they aren't so crazy after all. _Maybe _there are some extraterrestrials interfering in human affairs. How was it, again, that humans discovered fire?'

'You are deliberately derailing my lesson.'

'No I'm not! I'm _getting involved _!'

Mr Cortese narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips thoughtfully. '... I did watch an episode that suggested _seraphim _were, in fact, _aliens _.'

'Hah! All the eyes?'

'It was actually the spinning metal rings that attracted the most interest.'

'Makes sense. Bit _space-shippy _, isn't it?'

'... I suppose it is, rather.'

'Now _that _ is interesting. 'Cos spaceships are often depicted as circular and metallic and shiny, aren't they?'

Mr Cortese drew his eyebrows together.

_'And _,' Mr Harrison continued, 'you know, halos, they could easily be confused for space helmets, from a distance.'

'Oh dear,' said Mr Cortese.

Mr Harrison laughed.

Warlock said _'Yes! _' under his breath as he finally completed the _Flappy Birds _level he'd been stuck on for the past week.

It hadn't been that unusual a lesson, after all.


	24. 24 Dizzy

Aziraphale was _humming_ again.

Normally Crowley didn't mind Aziraphale's absent-minded humming and mumbled, distracted singing. In fact he really rather _enjoyed _it. Crowley always admired and appreciated the Angel's enthusiasm for music. Music was one of the things Aziraphale liked most. And one of the things Crowley liked most was Aziraphale and his unapologetic and strangely wholesome hedonism. He could never resent the Angel's relentless enjoyment of anything, least of all music. Well, nearly never, anyway.

Music was one of their many shared interests. But, slightly more rarely, it was one that both of them were passionate about on quite an equal footing. Even though the Angel still insisted on calling his record player a _gramophone_, which was the _epitome_ of uncool in late 60s Soho and always made Crowley, who aspired to _be_ the epitome of cool in late 60s Soho, cringe, the fact still remained that the Angel did own one of the best record players on the market, and used it every day. All of the local record shops knew Aziraphale by name, at least the ones which sold recordings of operettas and musicals alongside the more mainstream fares, anyway. And no one bar the Angel could match Crowley's knowledge of and enthusiasm for Noël Coward musicals, except, perhaps, _The Master_ himself.

It always slightly confused Crowley therefore that in spite of his unrestrained passion for music, Aziraphale was so resistant to listening to anything _new_. It wasn't so much that he disliked _modern_ music on principle, or anything, but more that he emphatically and resolutely _liked what he liked_, and didn't tend to stray far from what he knew. Crowley's attempts at getting the Angel into _The Doors_ and Buddy Holly and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin had failed completely, although to Crowley's dismay he did quite like _The Beach Boys_.

This disinterest in music outside of his auricular purview did work in Crowley's favour sometimes though. Crowley, too, was extremely passionate about music, and frequently took particular pieces quite to heart. The thought of Aziraphale happily singing along to _Pale Blue Eyes_ or _Black Angel's Death Song_ made him feel a bit faint. Aziraphale had casually mentioned _The Velvet Underground_ in conversation once and had nearly given the Demon an aneurism. Luckily it turned out the Angel had only been quoting back something a customer had said to him that day. If asked who Lou Reed was Aziraphale would probably reply with: '_Is he one of the clever chaps who walked on the moon last month?'_

So, no. Crowley did not normally mind Aziraphale humming melodies to himself whilst they were walking in the park, or out to dinner, or in the Bookshop or whatever.

_Normally_.

'Can you _please_ stop that?' Crowley snapped, after putting up with Aziraphale humming the same refrain for the past thirty minutes. It was a sunny afternoon, and they were driving up to Edinburgh for the festival.

'Hm? Stop what?' Aziraphale replied, innocently.

'_Humming_.'

'Oh, was I?'

'Yes.'

Aziraphale looked a little put out, and Crowley suddenly felt a little awful.

'Sorry. I didn't realise. Does it bother you, terribly?'

'Urgh. Don't say it like that, angel. I don't- Ngk- Just hum _something else_. _Anything_ else. That song is driving me insane. It's constantly on the radio, it was number one in the charts here _and_ in America, everywhere I go, there it is, _existing._ I have no _idea_ why it's so popular. It's awful. Saccharine, meaningless, bubblegum pop, and those bloody constant key changes are like fingernails down a chalkboard. Ugh.'

'It's catchy!'

'So is smallpox, doesn't mean I want it in my car.'

'Well it's stuck in my head. I can't seem to shift it.'

'It's a _virus_, that's why. If I didn't know better I'd assume My Side had something to do with that bloody song's creation. Have some sympathy for me, angel...'

'Well, let's put the radio on, then.'

'Yeah. Alright.'

Crowley flicked the switch on the state-of-the-art in-car radio and 8-track cassette player that had appeared in the Bentley after he'd recently read about them in a magazine.

_-but you keep playing hard to get, going round in circles all the tiiiiiime… Dizzy! I'm so diiiiizzy, my head is spinning, like a whirlp-_

Crowley let out a strangled scream and turned off the radio abruptly.

The song continued, nonetheless, via the medium of _Singing Angel._

'_\- like a whirlpool, it never ends, and it's you that's making it spin, you're making me-' _

'Shhhhzzzzpppptttt!' Crowley protested eloquently. 'So _help_ me _someone_, if I hear that _bloody song_ one more time-'

'It's a good song, Crowley.'

'No. It's not.'

Aziraphale opened the glove compartment. 'Let's put a cassette on, then.' Aziraphale had been quite enamoured with the 8-track player in the Bentley ever since Crowley had installed it. His requests for lifts places had exponentially increased in the year it'd been in there, not that Crowley was about to complain about that.

'What's this? _The Velvet Underground_? Shall I put that on?'

'No!' Crowley snapped, a little too rapidly. 'Um. No. That's- You won't like it. It's-' He rapidly scanned for something, anything, he knew would encourage the Angel to immediately and deliberately forget about that that band even existed. '-uh, it's _bebop_.'

Aziraphale pulled a face and dropped the cassette disdainfully back into the glove box. 'Oh.' He rummaged some more. 'Oh! _The Beach Boys_! I rather like them. Shall I put this on, dear boy?'

Crowley shrugged. He was fairly certain he had never purchased a Beach Boys album in his entire life. Bloody angel.

Still, Crowley found himself smiling as Aziraphale quietly and cheerily sang along to _Wouldn't It Be Nice? _as they drove along the long and winding roads up to Scotland.

Well, Crowley thought to himself, all things considered, there were worse ways to spend the summer of 1969.


	25. 25 Tasty

'Crowley,' Dagon said as the meeting room of demons slowly emptied, ' please remain. We need to have a word with you.'

Crowley closed his eyes and grimaced. Then he turned to face Dagon and Beelzebub with a beautifully charming smile plastered across his face.

'Of course,' he crowed silkily, the sycophancy dripping from his voice like syrup. 'What can I do for you Lord Dagon? Lord Beelzebub?' Crowley's smile turned slightly sour as he nodded to the figure slouching on a chair and smirking. 'Duke Hastur…'

'Hello, Crowley,' Hastur grinned.

Beelzebub put zir hands behind zir back. "We haszzzt heard szzzome diszzturbing rumourszzz about you, Crowley, that we would like to put to reszzzzzzt…'

Crowley gulped and began to mentally run through all of the things, both true and untrue, that could feasibly have been said about him to land him in trouble. The list was quite long. Very long. Extremely long. So long, in fact, that he couldn't even see the end of it.

He cleared his throat and bumped his bright smile up another few watts for good measure.

'Oh, well, _rumours_, Lord Beelzebub, I mean, usually made up by, you know, _bored_ people, or- Rarely anything in them. I mean, who puts any stake in _rumours_, these days?'

'I do.'

'Ah. Right.'

'It has been brought to our attention, Crowley, that you have been…' Dagon looked at their notes and frowned. They leaned over to Beelzebub, showing zir the notes with a questioning expression. '_Is this right?_' Crowley heard them whisper. Beezlebub nodded, and Dagon raised their eyebrows.

'...It has been brought to our attention, Crowley, that you have been refusing to partake of the flesh of beasts. What have you to say on this?'

Crowley wrinkled his nose and frowned. 'Eh? I've what?'

'Refused to partake of the flesh of beasts,' Hastur repeated, gleefully.

'Refused to partake of the flesh of…" Crowley's expression cycled through about twenty different emotions as realisation dawned on him, none of them good. "Ahh-nnn-mmm-ckkckk-jyyyeeeah- ...Right. I uh- Right. Flesh of beasts. I get it. You mean, uh, that I'm, um, vegetarian?'

'What iszzzzz _vegetarian_?' Beelzebub asked.

'Uh, well, uh, it, mmnn, well. It's when you, uh, well, _refuse to partake of the flesh of beasts_, I suppose,' Crowley attempted a light laugh, but it came out sounding more like a goat being strangled. Which, as a representation of how Crowley was feeling right now, was fairly accurate.

'Then you do not deny the rumourszzz?' Beelzebub asked, inclining zir head.

'Ah. Well. Ah. About that. Hah. Could I? Uh, deny it? Or would that be a bit-''

'It would.'

'Hah. Yes. Right. Of course. Um.'

Dagon and Beelzebub's stereo gazes burned into him, and Crowley suppressed the urge to run a finger under his collar. He wouldn't give Hastur the satisfaction.

'Right. Yes. Well. You see, there is actually a perfectly good explanation for that. No, wait, not perfectly good. Perfectly bad. Evil. Demonic. A perfectly demonic explanation for why it is that I am, in fact, a, nnnnmgggg vegetarian.'

'Well?' Dagon said after Crowley had been silent for a few moments. 'We are waiting, Crowley.'

'Yes, of course. Sorry. Uh. Right. Okay, so, hah, funny story, but first, I just wanted to find out if something I heard was true - Duke Hastur didn't you try to corrupt a politician a little while ago, but then that politician ended up quitting politics to become a philanthropist? Did that happen? Shame, that, all that effort just to send the man over to the Other Side. I just wondered if maybe I could, you know, as the resident _human expert_, go through that with him, with you, I mean, Duke Hastur, and, you know, give you a few pointers on where you went wrong, or-'

Hastur growled.

'We fail to see the relevance of this, Crowley,' Dagon said laconically.

'Just trying to be helpful, and-'

'It haszzz been noted.'

'Get on with it, Crowley…' Hastur said darkly.

Crowley tried to crush his grimace into a smile. 'Uh. Right. Okay. So. Why being vegetarian is actually demonic is what you, Lord Dagon, and you, Lord Beelzebub, and you, Duke Hastur, are at present asking me, Crowley, to explain to you right now.'

'Yes.'

Crowley upheld a cool and calm outer facade whilst internally he scrambled through the recesses of his mind for something, _anything_ to say. There had to be _something_…

'Right. Well. Actually, a lot of humans throughout history who did a lot of very, very bad things were also vegetarian. Adolf Hitler, for example, and uh, Wagner. Lord Byron, he was very into vegetarianism. Very dissolute, Byron. And Shelley, he was vegetarian too. Charles Manson, you know, um... ' Crowley scraped the bottom of his mental barrel of sinful vegetarians, '...that guy from _Coldplay_…'

'Szzo you are szzaying that humans who refuse to consume fleszzsh are all szzservantszz of Our Lord and Maszzzzzter?'

'Uh. Kind of. Not all, but-'

'That's bullshit,' Hastur chimed in. 'He's havin' you on. Loads of _good_ vegetarians on Earth. Saints as well. Loads of 'em.'

If looks could kill, Hastur would have been a pile of steaming ash on the floor by now.

'Yeah. Well. Humans, you know? Free will and all that, it's a bit- ngk. Bit of a bugger.'

'You are failing to convince us, Crowley,' Dagon said.

'Right. Right. Well I have a lot of other, uh, you know, uh… PETA, for one. They're pretty demonic. Going around throwing paint at people. Using sex and the objectification of women to achieve political goals. Um. I think they killed someone's chihuahua, once. Loads of bad stuff, PETA. Properly evil.'

'What is _PETA_?' Dagon asked.

'What iszz a chihuahua?'

'S'a small dog,' Crowley said.

'A small dog used the objectification of women to achieve political goals?' Dagon said, perplexed. 'What has this to do with your defense case, Crowley?'

It was all Crowley could do not to scream into his hands with frustration.

'No, the chihuahua is the small dog,' he explained very, very patiently. 'PETA is-'

'PETA is a charity,' Hastur said, smugly. 'People for the, erm… something about animals. _Charity_.' He repeated the word for emphasis.

'Charity?' Dagon said, raising an eyebrow. 'Charity is a _virtue_, Crowley.'

'What? No, but- I mean _yeah_, but- It's not so black and white as that anymore more, what with- ngk- The rainforests!' He said.

Dagon was starting to look irritated.

'Rainforests,' Crowley repeated. 'They're being cut down really fast. Causing all sorts of damage, definitely evil. And you know why? _Soy_. That's the big one. And you know who eats a lot of soy? _Vegetarians.'_

'And cows,' Hastur said.

'What?'

'Cows. Most of the deforestation of the rainforest is for soy to feed meat cattle. Try again.'

'Why do you know so much about all this, _Hastur_?' Crowley hissed.

'Been doin' my research, 'aven't I?' Hastur replied with an malicious grin.

Crowley gritted his teeth.

This was all so ridiculous. Who _cared_ if he was vegetarian? What difference did it make to Hell? He still hit all of his targets, didn't he? They had no complaints to make about him, he made sure of that.

It all had to be Hastur's doing. It was obvious. That piece of work had always had it in for Crowley.

The worst part was that Crowley didn't even _mean_ to be vegetarian. It just sort of crept up on him. In fact, he actively tried _not_ to be. At one point he made a pact with himself that he wouldn't eat anything _except_ for meat. He'd ended up not eating for five years. That had gotten old _very _fast. Finally caved in and just accepted his inevitable vegetarianism with a sigh and salad.

It had all started back in around the second millennium B.C.E. He'd been hanging out with shepherds a lot. And when you hang out with shepherds a lot, you also have to hang out with sheep and goats. Crowley liked sheep and goats. He learned that they had distinct personalities, and they made friendships, and held grudges, and generally seemed to enjoy being alive quite a lot.

One day he made the mistake of accepting the offer of dinner with a local shepherd and his family. As he was about to tuck into a bowl of lamb stew, the shepherd's son walked past with a dead sheep slung over his shoulder, throat cut and muscles still twitching. Crowley _recognised_ the sheep.

He hadn't been able to stomach lamb, after that.

Then gradually _all_ meat began to have a face. When he tried to eat steak, he saw cows, with their big, gentle eyes and their fierce protectiveness of their babies. When he tried to eat pork, he saw pigs, and their intelligence and cute little noses. When he tried to eat chicken, he saw the inquisitive head-tilts of the small birds as they investigated the world around them. He just couldn't do it. It drove him _crazy_, and he fought it with every fibre of his being, but he just couldn't shake it. How could he enjoy a good rare steak under those circumstances? Took all the fun out of it. It was _infuriating_.

Eventually he'd started coming up with rationalisations for it. He couldn't beat it, but he could twist it and make it work for him. Crowley was _good_ at doing that. He considered using those justifications now, but somehow he felt that the nuances of this would be lost on Dagon and Beelzebub. It had taken him fifteen years to finally explain why the mainstream printing of the Bible in English was in _their_ favour more than Heaven's, and why he had worked so hard to make that happen. And he wasn't certain they had ever actually understood his argument, so much as just getting bored of hearing him talk about it.

Animals, he'd reasoned to himself (and, on one inebriated occasion, to Aziraphale), weren't like humans. Humans got a _choice_. That was the whole point. And Crowley's job, when you got down to brass tacks, was to make sure that humans always had the choice to do _evil_. And Aziraphale, as the representative of Heaven, was there to let them know they also had the choice to do good.

That was the whole point of all of it, wasn't it? _Animals_ didn't get a choice. Heaven gave humans _dominion_ over the creatures of the Earth. So causing harm to animals wasn't in itself an inherently demonic thing to do. Not _actually_ demonic. Yes, it was _evil_, but _evil_ was a choice for humans to make, it didn't really have any bearing on the personal behaviour of _demons_. So if harming animals, as far as occult entities were concerned, wasn't strictly _evil_, then doing the opposite couldn't be inherently _good_, either. As long as Crowley didn't influence any _humans_ to be nice to animals, then he didn't see why it should be a problem. He didn't influence them to _hurt_ animals either, of course, but there were plenty of bad things he didn't influence humans to do. He couldn't do _everything_, after all.

Anyway, Heaven didn't seem to care that much about animal welfare in any case. There was always a load of animal collateral damage in _heavenly _action. The Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Plagues of Egypt, the Crusades, all of those cats and toads and black dogs killed as demonic familiars during the witch hunts... And that was another point. Animals were often associated with the Devil, much more than with angels. How many animal saints were there? Crowley could only think of one. Two if you counted Lassie. But _loads_ of animals were believed to be in league with Satan. Satan himself was frequently portrayed as a goat. So, really, protecting animals was sort of like protecting Hell's acolytes. Of course animals weren't _really_ Hell's minions, but as long as humans _believed _they were… Crowley hadn't fully developed that argument yet, but he was certain he was onto something there.

And, oh yeah, also, God was pretty up on animal sacrifice, wasn't She? That had to count for something, didn't it?

Crowley had lots of reasons to make himself feel better about being vegetarian. He had come to terms with it. Accepted it. He didn't quite go so far as to _embrace_ it, but he had at least made peace with it. And his reasons were eminently logical, and rational, and well-constructed, so the fact that they also had _absolutely nothing to do_ with the real reason he couldn't eat meat was basically irrelevant. The point was that he _did _have _very clever _reasons to justify his behaviour.

The problem was that he was being forced to justify himself to a group of people who thought the pinnacle of subtle and intelligent debate was just _lying_. Or setting their opponent on fire.

Sometimes Crowley felt like the entire universe had been created with the sole purpose of tormenting him.

_Think think think think!_

'Crowley, if you cannot adequately explain yourself we will be forced to undertake an investigation into your activities on Earth. It has been alleged, on the basis of these rumors, that your loyalties may have been compromised. Obviously we do not wish to believe such things, particularly not of one so creatively successful as you, but once the paperwork has been filed, due process necessitates that the correct procedures be followed, you understand. And if you cannot provide us with an adequate justification for quashing these rumours then we will be bound by regulation to continue in line with regulation 6293.5287b open brackets ZZ.2 close brackets.'

'Yeah!' Haster grinned. 'Full investigation, how do you like that, Mister Slick?'

Crowley nodded desperately and swallowed.

'Okay. Okay. Right well, you see, uh…'

_think think think think think something they will understand their level old school, old school, come on __**think**_...

'Cain!' Crowley exclaimed, suddenly. He had to consciously stop himself from air punching in triumph. Finally, _this_ was an angle he could work with.

'Cain?'

"Exactly. Cain. Remember him? First murderer? Know what else he was? _First vegetarian._ Yeah. How about that? 'Cos, right, yeah, remember? Cain's brother, he sacrificed lambs, right, but Cain, he gave God fruit instead, because he didn't raise sheep, and - I have this on first-hand authority - he didn't eat them, either. And God didn't look too favourably on that, did She? Got all funny about it. Had a go at Cain about it, wound him up so much that he killed Abel. _Ergo_, She doesn't like vegetarians.' Crowley sniffed, smugly. He was quite impressed with himself. 'What's more Demonic than deliberately doing something God expressly said she doesn't like? _And_ which caused the first proper sin, ever. Indirectly, at least.'

Dagon narrowed their eyes.

'Hmmmm.'

'I mean really, when you think about it, we should all be asking Hastur why he _isn't_ vegetarian. If God Herself is such a big fan of a nice rare steak, then, really, every time Hastur nips up to Earth for a hamburger he is, in effect, sacrificing to Her. If you think about it. Tsk, tsk, tsk, Duke Hastur. Doing God's Will just because you find _Big Macs_ tasty.''

Crowley was slightly worried that he might have gone a bit far with that last bit, but _in for a penny, in for a pound_, as they say.

He shouldn't have been concerned. He had been on the money. Read his audience perfectly.

_Bingo_.

Dagon and Beelzebub both turned to stare questioningly at Duke Hastur.

'What?' he said, swaying slightly from how quickly the tables had turned. 'Me? Why're you looking at me? This is supposed to be about _him_!'

'Am I good to go, then?' Crowley asked.

'You have demonstrated that your abstinence from the consumption of flesh is deeply rooted in considered and reasoned demonic anti-theology. We thank you for your patience in this matter. You are free to go, Crowley' Dagon said, before turning their attention back to Hastur.

'Have you really been going to Earth to eat _hamburgerszzzzz_, Duke Haszzztur? Thiszzzz waszz not recorded in any of your reportszzzzz…'

Crowley edged out of the room as quickly as he could without actually running.

He called Aziraphale on the way home and invited him out to the new vegan restaurant that had opened in Camden. Well, now, he figured, he could claim it back on expenses.

Doing the Devil's Work with every smoked barbecue jackfruit tortilla. _That_ was a job Crowley could get behind.


	26. 26 Dark

Warlock had a new book from the library. Well, actually he had several new books from the library, but to this one book in particular he had become particularly attached. It was called _The Island _.

'Nanny,' Warlock said as he was being tucked into bed.

'Yes, my darling?' Nanny replied.

'Can we read the book?'

'Of course we can,' she said gently.

They read the book.

Warlock had chosen the book himself. Nanny was _very _pleased with his choice. She couldn't have chosen better herself. Crowley would probably have been surprised at just how cynical and depressing a picture book ostensibly for children could be, but Nanny Ashtoreth was not surprised. Nanny Ashtoreth had been caring for Warlock for five years. Nanny knew all about children's books.

'Why do they make the man go away, Nanny?' Warlock asked once they'd reached the end of the book.

'Why do you think they made the man go away?'

Warlock frowned, his little face scrunched up in thought. 'Because they was frightened.'

'Yes. They were.'

'Why?'

'Because the man was different to them.'

Warlock considered this.

'The children didn't be nice to him.'

'No one was very nice to him, were they? Not even the Priest. Nor the teachers. Not even the mummies and the daddies. What do you think about that, Warlock?'

'_ Horrible _,' Warlock said emphatically.

'Yes,' said Nanny. 'All of the people in the book were horrible to the man, weren't they? Even the people who you would expect to be kind. What do you think that teaches you?'

Warlock looked up at Nanny with wide eyes and shook his little head.

'It teaches you, my darling boy, that you _cannot trust anyone _. It teaches you that all people are capable of great evils, and that no one deserves your sympathy. Even people who act as though they are kind, people who you believe would never do horrible things, they are all horrible when given the choice to be. Under the right circumstances they are all capable of locking an innocent stranger in a goat pen, and starving him, and accusing him of awful things, and sending him to his _death _.'

'People make choices every day, Warlock, and every day they _choose _to be horrible. Sometimes they might, on a whim, choose to be nice. For an hour. For a day. To someone that they like, or because they just happen to feel like it. But remember this story, Warlock. Remember that those mummies and daddies who loved their children, the teachers taught about freedom and hope, the fisherman who at first tries to be kind, and even the Priest who says he believes we are _all God's creatures, deserving of love _, they all threw the stranger to the sea. They all built the wall. They all shot down the birds.'

Warlock looked like he might cry, and Nanny felt a momentary pang, not quite of guilt, because all of these things were true, but of sadness, perhaps. Sadness _because _all of these things were true.

'But don't be sad, sweetheart. Because you, Warlock, you can command them all, one day. You can take this world and grind it beneath your heel. All of those people, those horrible, selfish, cruel people, you can destroy them. You can _punish _them. You can bring the ultimate _justice _. You understand?'

Warlock nodded.

'But you and Brother Francis aren't actually horrible, are you?'

Nanny Ashtoreth looked up at the ceiling for a moment, and sighed.

'Not really,' she said.

'Didn't think so,' Warlock replied.

Nanny ruffled his hair and smiled.

'There's my boy.'

oOo

It was a bright September day, one of those days when Summer lingers just a little too long, meeting clandestinely with Autumn behind green-orange leaves as the warm sun fraternizes with the bitter breeze.

Warlock stomped up the lawn clutching a large picture book in his small hands.

'Hello Brother Francis,' he said as he approached the kindly old man.

'Hello there, Master Warlock. How are you this afternoon?'

'Fine,' Warlock replied. 'Can you please read my book?'

'What book might that be?'

Warlock held up the book. Brother Francis raised an eyebrow at the cover, which depicted an ominous and imposing fortress, stark against a white background. It didn't look very child-friendly.

'Did Nanny pick this book out for you?' Brother Francis said with a dubious tone.

'No I got it myself at the liberarry with mommy.'

'Hmmm. Well, okay then. Why don't we go sit on that there bench and read it?'

'Okay!'

They read the book.

'You say you chose this book yourself, Warlock?'

'Yep.'

Brother Francis suddenly felt immensely proud of the little boy. Aziraphale would have been surprised that a children's book could be so profound. So was Brother Francis. He didn't get to read to Warlock often. He didn't know much about children's books.

'It is a very good book, Master Warlock,' Brother Francis said. 'What do you think the message of this book is?'

'Nanny says it's about how you can't trust no one 'cos actually everyone is actually horrible and people do evil things, um, and, and they choose to be evil, even mommies and daddies.'

Brother Francis frowned. 'Well, that is certainly one way of looking at it…' he murmured. And it was. He couldn't say that Nanny Ashtoreth was _wrong _about that. But she certainly wasn't entirely right, either.

'What would you have done, Warlock, if you were on that Island?'

'Uhhh dunno,' Warlock said.

'Would you have been horrible to the stranger, too? Would you have done those evil things? Or would you have been his friend? And showed the other Island people how they should behave?'

'Uh, I would be his friend.'

'What do you think would have happened, if someone on the Island had been his friend instead of being cruel to him?'

'Maybe he won't be sad, if he has a friend. 'Cos sometimes I'm sad but then if I have a friend then I feel better and we can play Spaceships.'

'And do you think the other people on the Island would have been cruel to the stranger, if you were there and they saw you playing Spaceships with him?'

'No 'cos I would um grind them under my heel if they did.'

'What I _mean _, Warlock,' Brother Francis ploughed on, expertly ignoring that reply, 'is that whilst it is true that people have the choice to do evil things, and they often _do _choose to do evil things, they also have the choice to do _good _. _You _have the choice to do good, my boy. And one person choosing to do good in the face of evil can be a very powerful thing. Especially for _you _, my lad.'

'There is a great deal of darkness in the world, Warlock, but there is also a great deal of _light _. And light can shine even more brightly when it is surrounded by the darkness. And the wonderful thing about light, Warlock, is that it can spread. One tiny candle in the darkness can light a thousand more. One person choosing to do good can inspire others. Like the Fisherman at the start of the story, remember? He spoke up for the Stranger, and the others listened. But he didn't _keep _speaking up. He stopped choosing to be good.'

'But _you _, Warlock, you have more influence than most. More than you know. You can show people the way. You can help them choose to be _good _. You can help to lead them out of the darkness.'

'Monsters live in the dark but Nanny said I'm scarier than a monster so I shouldn't be frightened.'

'Um, yes. That's- Well, exactly. You _shouldn't _be afraid of the monsters. That is quite right. Because you can show the monsters how to be _kind. _You can show them that it is much better to be friends than to be monsters. And one day, perhaps, _all _of the monsters can become friends. Then no one will be cast out, and no boats will have to be burned, and no birds will be shot, and no walls will be built, because all of the monsters will all have become _friends _. Do you understand?'

Warlock nodded.

'Friends like you and Nanny are friends?' he asked.

Brother Francis frowned pensively, and gazed up at the clouds.

'Yes. Yes, I suppose so,' he said.

'Oh yeah, Nanny said to say we are getting ice cream later and if you want you can have some. I'm having _cookie dough_!'

Brother Francis ruffled Warlock's hair.

'Sounds good, my lad.'


	27. 27 Coat

'Ngk,' Crowley said as Aziraphale re-entered the room carrying a tin of paint in one hand, two paintbrushes in the other, and a roller and tray set wedged under his arm, and dressed in - Well.

'What are you _wearing_?' Crowley managed to say, looking Aziraphale up and down and shaking his head incredulously.

'What?'

'I- Zzpptt- Nnnnnmmt- Is that a _t-shirt_? You're wearing a _t-shirt_?'

Aziraphale looked down at himself, as though he had to check. 'Yes?' he replied, looking back up at Crowley with a confused expression. 'Is that a problem?'

'Are those _jeans_?'

'What's wrong with jeans?'

'_You_ are wearing _denim jeans_?

'Denim is a very practical material, Crowley. It's hardy. I'm not about to risk getting paint on my every-day clothes.' He eyed Crowley's slick designer attire critically. 'You had really ought to get changed too, my dear. They are going to get ruined.'

'Angel, I don't _buy_ clothes. I manifest them at will. They can't _get_ ruined, unless I let them. Look-'

He snapped his fingers and his black skinny jeans and black shirt metamorphosed into a hawaiian shirt and shorts. He snapped them again and they turned into a red dress with matching stiletto heels. He snapped a third time and his usual dark outfit reappeared, only spattered with a rainbow of paint splashes. 'See?'

'Very theatrical, my dear,' Aziraphale said, turning his attention to opening the tin of _Whismy Half Blue_. 'You've made your point. Not terribly in the _spirit_ of the thing, but…'

Crowley sighed and manifested a pair of slightly too well-cut jeans and a dark grey cotton t-shirt, and ignored the angel's pleased smile.

'Why do we have to paint the bloody living room, anyway?' he huffed, jamming his hands into his pockets. 'Why can't we just miracle it?'

'It's not the _same_,' Aziraphale said, standing up and handing the demon a paintbrush. 'I always had the Bookshop painted and maintained _properly_, and I'm not about to give our summer cottage any less love and attention.' He patted the doorframe affectionately. 'She deserves the best, and I don't care what you say, Crowley, some things simply cannot be miracled.'

Crowley groaned. 'Fine. Where do you want to start?'

'I thought we could do the big wall here first as it has the least amount of fiddly bits, then the window wall and the door wall, and then the alcove wall last because that looks like it is going to be a little tricky. Then once the first coat is dry we can do the second coat.'

'Wait, we have to paint it _twice_? Oh for- Aziraphale, how long is this going to take?'

'Why? Do you have somewhere you needed to be?' the angel bit back.

Crowley tried to glare at him, but his mouth kept stubbornly insisting on twisting into an amused grin. Bloody bastard angel.

'Can we at least put the radio on, then?'

_Four hours later_

The sun was setting. The pink and orange and golden and red sunset dipping slowly beneath the horizon looked like an oil painting, slightly garish, and framed by the cottage's old glass and heavy oak window. The radio was playing Stanley Clarke and Hiromi Uehara's rendition of _Someday My Prince Will Come_. Several half-finished bottles of wine were dotted around the room, holding down the white dust sheets which protected the furniture and floorboards.

Aziraphale and Crowley sat on the floor, propped up against the coffee table, covered in light blue paint.

'-and it was clearly _nothing_ more than a three-hour _monologue_ promoting his book.'

Crowley laughed. 'Where did he think he was going?!'

'I have no idea, but the whole thing was so _awkward_ and frankly rather painful. Are you going to finish those?'

Crowley shook his head and pushed his newspaper wrapper of chip-shop chips in the Angel's direction. 'Help yourself.'

'It's looking rather nice, isn't it?' Aziraphale said, looking around the room. He took one of Crowley's chips.

'Yeah,' Crowley agreed, absently eating some more chips himself. 'It does.'

'A few places need a little touching up, but on the whole I believe we've done rather well. Of course, it's a bit hard to tell for sure, what with all of the dust sheets and what have you. But I think it's going to be quite cosy in here, once it's all finished.'

Crowley nodded and reached up for the bottle of wine on the table behind them.

A voice on the radio smoothly introduced the next piece as Django Reindhart's version of _All The Things You Are_.

'You were right,' Crowley said, taking a swig straight from the bottle. 'About doing it _properly_, I mean. It does make a difference. Looks more- Mmnnnnmm- _proper_.'

'Mmm,' the Angel agreed. He took the wine from Crowley's hand and drank some himself. 'There's just so much more _love_ in doing things the _human_ way.'

'Hmmm. Something like that.'

Aziraphale tilted his head to one side, turning to look at the demon sitting beside him.

'You didn't really mind spending the day painting, did you my dear? I know I can be a bit of an old silly with things like that. Bit _soft. _I know it's not the most _exciting_ way to spend your time...'

Crowley looked back at him and smiled a small half-smile.

'I've had quite enough excitement for one lifetime, angel. For several, in fact.'

'That's true enough. But still, I don't mean to monopolise your time, or chivy you into doing anything you don't want to do…' Aziraphale was baiting him, and Crowley knew it.

'Angel?'

'Yes?'

'Shut up.'

Aziraphale chuckled softly and looked down at his hands in his lap, blushing. Crowley leaned in and bumped Aziraphale's shoulder with his own.

The Angel looked back up at him and smiled, the sunset bleeding gold through the window behind him, drenching him in soft light. Crowley suddenly felt almost overwhelmed with gratitude and beatitude and, yes, _love_. Aziraphale _was_ right. There was so much more love in doing things 'properly', as he put it. Suddenly the small cottage felt more like a _home_, even if only a third one. Even if only one for the summer, one for when they wanted out of the city.

'Was fun,' Crowley said.

It felt safe.

'It was, rather. We make a good team.'

It felt hopeful.

'Yeah. Yeah, we do.'

It felt like _theirs_.

Funny, what a coat of paint can do.


	28. 28 Ride

"Lord Beelzebub," Crowley said through gritted teeth, dipping his head in sarcastic genuflection. "Wonderful to see you."

"You can szzzzztop with all of that nonszzzenszzze-" Beelzebub paused mid sentence and ran their tongue across their teeth as if trying to clear away the extra z's. "Ugh, the voiczzze is always the laszzzzt thing to return to normal," they complained to Gabriel, who shrugged.

"Prince Anthony, you have played at thiszz szzilly little game for long enough. It iszz about time you returned to your Kingdom like a _good little boy _.'

Crowley leaned back, shaking his head, inadvertently pushing himself into Aziraphale. "No," he said. "I'm not going back. I am _never _going back."

"Of courszzze you are," Beelzebub said, flippantly. "You are the Princzze. You will szzoon be King. Disszzapearing five dayszz before your coronation czzeremony, Anthony… What would your father szzay?"

"I don't _care _what he would have said," Crowley snapped. "He's _dead _."

"Yeszz, he iszz," Beelzebub replied. "And it is your reszponszibility to take your placze on hiszz throne."

"I don't want it," Crowley said. Aziraphale could have sworn that he could hear _fear _in the man's voice.

"I don't care what you want," Beelzebub snapped, all attempt at silken sycophancy and preening persuasion leached from their voice. "You_ will _shut up and be a _good little szzznake _, or szzo help me-"

"Or what? _What _will you do, Beelzebub?" Crowley said, stepping forward and dropping Aziraphale's hand, posture full of terrified challenge. "Kill me?"

Beelzebub shook their head, and when they spoke, they spoke kindly. "No. No, I wouldn't kill you, Princzze Anthony. You are my Princzze, and I am your moszzt loyal szzubject. I promiszzed your Father that I would never act for the harm of Techduinn. Me killing you would would not benefit the Kingdom. No. I would never harm you, my sweet Princzze..."

Their eyes glittered, and they inclined their head towards Gabriel, a malevolent grin creeping over their face.

"...But he might."

Gabriel smiled.

"Gabriel would never-" Aziraphale found himself saying. He looked to his Guardian, his Captor, the only family he had ever really known, with eyes wide and imploring and full of the answers he didn't want to believe. "You wouldn't, Gabriel, you could never-"

"Oh, Aziraphale. Sweet, naive Aziraphale," Gabriel said, beginning to pace and still wearing his dragon-like smile. "You don't understand the _pressures _of ruling a Kingdom. Sometimes difficult decisions must be made for the greater good. Prince Anthony knows all about that. His _Father _knew all about that."

"What _greater good _could possibly come from _murder? _And murder of the _heir to the throne _!"

"War," Crowley said, dully.

"What? I don't-"

"War," he repeated, turning to look at Aziraphale, "is good _business _." Crowley closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. "Our Kingdoms have been locked in perpetual warfare for longer than anyone can remember. Economies have built around it, two entire cultures and societies existing with warfare at their hearts, an entire political power system centred on military accomplishment and strategic landholds…"

"Clever boy," Aziraphale heard Gabriel mutter to Beelzebub.

"Yeah, well where we come from we _prepare _our Princzzeszz inszztead of locking them up…"

"But war," Crowley continued, speaking directly to Aziraphale, "is expensive. It- It's expensive in _people _. In _lives _. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, even, get fed to the endless war machine. And, ngk, eventually, inevitably, _repeatedly _, almost like clockwork they start getting sick of it. They start getting, mnnnggkk- they start _questioning _the _sense _of it all. Why they have to send their sons and daughters away to die for some far away war, for some far away reason, on the orders of some far away King. And when that happens, when the very foundations of society begin to crack, the people need a _reason _. A reason to _care _. A reason to be angry. A reason to _hate _…"

Aziraphale swallowed, and Crowley looked away, turning back to glare at Gabriel and Beelzebub.

"And what better way to rekindle hatred of the Annwynnians than by the brutal assassination of Techduinn's _beloved Prince _," he hissed, voice full of venom and tired resignation.

Gabriel clapped his hands. "Oh, brilliant. _Beautifu _l. Oh, I can see why you were so reluctant to lose this one, Beelzebub. What a _devious _little mind. You trained him well. He's so like his Father."

"I am _nothing _like my Father," Crowley snarled. "And your plan won't work. The people would never unite under Beelzebub. Dagon's faction is too powerful now. They'd splinter off. You can't risk it. You _need me _."

Gabriel nodded. "You have to admit, he does have a point," he said.

Aziraphale didn't like the glint in his eyes.

"Yeszz. Aszz uszzual the _clever _Princzze seeszz to the cruxzzz of the matter. We _do _need you, Anthony." Beelzebub's gaze drifted over to Aziraphale. "But we don't need _him _…"

"What?!" Crowley shook his head rapidly. "No. You- You can't. You wouldn't-"

"My associate here is quite right, unfortunately," Gabriel said in a tone of voice better suited to explaining to a child why they did, sadly, in fact have to go to bed. "It isn't quite as_neat _as Our Side assassinating Prince Anthony; I'll have to explain how it came about that Prince Aziraphale was in fact not killed as a child but was somehow alive this entire time unbeknownst to us all, but I'm sure I am quite capable of handling that. Convenient amnesia, perhaps. In fact, that might actually pack a bit more of a punch. Long lost Prince miraculously reappears, only to be viciously and _painfully _murdered by those _evil _Techduinnans. Yes, I can see it now…"

"No!" Crowley interjected desperately. "You don't have to do this. Please. We can- Ngk- Look, let's just _talk _about this, and-"

"There iszz nothing to talk about. If you refuszze to return to take your placzze aszz King, Princzze Anthony, I am afraid we have no other choice…"

Beelzebub took a step towards Aziraphale, menace in their smile.

"We could just leave," Crowley said, panic creeping into his voice. "Just let us go. Say we are both dead, do what you like. Just- You can have power. Have your war. You can- Just let us go. We won't come back. We'll leave. As far away as you can imagine."

Aziraphale's heart was racing in his chest. He'd been silent for a long while, just listening. Processing._ Thinking. _

"Crowley, we can't do that," he said, quietly.

"Your little _boyfriend _iszz right, _Crowley _. You szzaid it yourszzelf, Dagon would never-"

"No, no, that's not what I mean," Aziraphale cut in, interrupting Lord Beelzebub, unsure of quite where his newfound courage was coming from. Perhaps when things got so dire fear itself upped and left. Aziraphale turned his back on Beelzebub and Gabriel and looked earnestly at Crowley. "If I understand correctly, what they want is to use our deaths, yours or mine or both of ours if need be, to re-kindle an otherwise waning war. They want to use us to convince those people to fight. To _kill _each other, Crowley."

Crowley shook his head. "Angel, look, they are going to get what they want. They always do. They always have. How do you think our Kingdoms have survived for so long? How do you think this _war _has carried on so long? It's because they _want _it to. My father, your mother, their parents and their parents' parents, all the way back, right to the very beginning. It's- We can't- I can't- But we don't have to _die _for it. _You _ don't have to die-"

"But people _will _die, Crowley. Innocent people. I-" Aziraphale closed his eyes and swallowed hard, shaking his head. "I could never live with myself."

Crowley grabbed Aziraphale's arm."But they are going to die _anyway _, that's my _point! _We don't have to die _as well _. Please, angel, think about this. We can go away. Ride off into the sunset. We'll be safe, and everything else will just, ngk, _carry on _."

Aziraphale looked into Crowley's eyes. "You're _better _than that, Crowley…"

Crowley drew his eyebrows together as his breath caught in his throat. He shook his head. "Angel…"

"No. He'szz not," Beelzebub cut in. "He iszz his Father'szz son. He will do what is necesszzary. He iszz too _clever _to do anything _szztupid. _Do not poszztpone the inevitable, Princzze Anthony. For it iszz inevitable."

Crowley nodded, a small and hollow gesture, dragging his gaze away from Aziraphale's.

"Yeah," he said dully. "I- Yeah." He let his hand slip from Aziraphale's arm as he turned away, as he turned to face Lord Beelzebub. "Okay," he said. "I- I'll come back with you."

"Crowley, you don't have to do this-" Aziraphale reached out and laid his hand on Crowley's arm.

Prince Anthony span around, shrugging off his friend's and seizing him by the wrist.

"_ No _," he hissed. "I _do _. Lord Beelzebub is right. It is inevitable. There's nothing that I can do, nothing anyone can do. Not while Lord Gabriel and Lord Beelzebub are in power.

Aziraphale felt the unexpected courage which had risen in his chest begin to quaver. "Crowley? You can't mean that-"

"Oh, I can. I _do_. Listen to me. They are _right_. Gabriel is _your responsibility_, and Beelzebub is _mine_. These are _our_ Kingdoms and it is _our _job to _defend them_, no matter the cost. We have a_ duty._ I can see that now, and I won't walk away from it. I- Even if I want to. Do you understand?

Crowley stared intently at Aziraphale, widening his eyes ever so slightly, raising his eyebrows ever so slightly.

Aziraphale swallowed and nodded his head, ever so slightly.

"Look at me, Angel. _This _is who I am. Never forget that. Whatever happens. This is who I am."

Crowley slid his hand from Aziraphale's wrist and he turned away.

As he did so he pressed something into Aziraphale's palm.

"_ So _glad you came to your senses, Prince Anthony," Gabriel said, every inch the creeping sycophant. "I am sure that you and I will have as excellent a professional relationship as I had with your late father. Wonderful man. _Ruthless _. Quite a trait to admire." He smiled a wide and glittering smile.

Aziraphale ran his thumb over the object in his fist. It felt like a small vial. He carefully wedged the cork from the top, and watched Crowley like a hawk.

"Yes," Crowley replied. "I think that was the problem. I didn't feel up to stepping into his shoes. How could I ever follow in the footsteps of a man like my Father, after all? He was ruthless. He _threw everything he had _at his enemies. Even those he _once thought of as allies. _But he _waited _. He waited for the _right moment _to level the playing field. He did whatever it took… I wasn't as brave as him. I was _afraid _, and so I _ran. _" Crowley glanced at Aziraphale. "I'm tired of running."

Aziraphale steeled himself.

He nodded at Crowley.

Crowley _leapt _.

In mid-air Crowley transformed himself into a magnificent serpent, twice as long as the man was tall, all gleaming black scales, shimmering with red and gold wherever the light hit him. He flew at Beelzebub, catching them off guard, and wrapped himself around them, pinning their arms to their sides. Crowley snapped at a charm necklace hanging around their neck and cast it to the floor as Beelzebub too changed with a furious scream into a similarly huge and intimidating snake.

Aziraphale didn't hesitate. Turning to Gabriel in the chaos, he grabbed his half-drunk cup of tea from off of his desk and tossed it's contents at him. Gabriel's eyes flared in anger, and Aziraphale held his breath.

"Oh, you will regret that," Gabriel menaced, stepping towards his former charge. His former _captive _.

Gabriel brought his hands up in front of his chest, fingertips almost touching. He moved his hands as though he were holding an invisible crystal ball.

Aziraphale stepped backwards and glanced over at the snakes writhing on the floor. Crowley and Beelzebub were still fighting, a tangle of scales and teeth and blood. Aziraphale winced.

Gabriel continued advancing towards the Lost Prince. Small sparks were beginning to fly from his fingertips, flashes of black light, like lightning in reverse.

Aziraphale waited.

"You were always such a _disappointment _," Gabriel said. His hands were beginning to crackle, and the room began to grow dark. "So _weak _."

Aziraphale waited.

"I had hoped that one day you could be placed on the throne, follow in your mother's footsteps. Now _there _was a ruler. You are _nothing _like her."

Aziraphale ran his thumb over the cool glass tucked in his fist.

"But don't worry. Your death will serve the Kingdom. As hers did."

Gabriel pulled back his hands with a sharp inhalation.

Aziraphale stopped waiting.

He hurled the vial at Gabriel and a bright blue liquid splashed over his hands and clothes. Spirals of silver glitter twisted through the air like smoke, weaving and looping around Gabriel's hands like chains. The black lightning faded. And then the silver smoke did, too.

"_ What did you do _?" Gabriel barked, staring at his hands. He flexed his fingers and snarled when nothing happened. " _What _did you _do!?"_

"I'm not certain," Aziraphale replied, "but I think I might have levelled the playing field."

Gabriel snarled, all composure lost, as he swung for Aziraphale.

Aziraphale anticipated this and dashed, clumsily but with surprising speed, towards the kitchen area. He grabbed a frying pan from off of the counter and swung it around as Gabriel lunged at him a second time.

It met the man's head with a resonant _thwunk._

Gabriel swayed for a moment before crashing to the floor.

"Oh dear," Aziraphale said. "I do hope he isn't dead…"

A crash from behind him wrested his attention away from unconscious (he hoped) Gabriel.

Crowley had Beelzebub pinned to the floor. Their thrashing tails had knocked over Aziraphale's easel, spilling paint across the floor. . A bottle of isopropyl alcohol paintbrush cleaner rolled onto the rug.

Crowley hissed, and Beelzebub spat.

"_ Run," _Aziraphale heard Crowley say. Although it sounded more like a strange kind of modulated hiss, somehow he could understand.

"What!? No!"

Aziraphale cast about the room desperately, looking for anything that could help.

"_ Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss," _Crowley hissed.

"_ No! _"

Aziraphale grabbed the bottle of isopropyl and wrenched off the cap.

"_ Move! _" he shouted at Crowley, as he threw the strong alcohol directly in Beelzebub's face.

Beelzebub hissed in pain and writhed desperately, letting go of their grip on Crowley in their panic.

"_ Ssssssssssssssssssssmasssssh the necklacsssssssssssssssssse," _Aziraphale heard him say as he limply slithered over to the other side of the room.

Aziraphale stamped on the red glass pendant.

The air seemed for a second to rush out of the room, and then came rushing back. Beelzebub, returned to their human form, continued to writhe on the floor, clawing at their face where the alcohol burned in their eyes.

Aziraphale grabbed the Tower Key from the side table. "Crowley?"

Crowley was propped up against the window sill. He had a great deal of blood on him; Aziraphale couldn't tell how much of it was his.

On the floor, Gabriel began to stir.

"We need to go, Crowley."

"Yeah. Yeah." He staggered to his feet. Aziraphale hooked Crowley's arm over his shoulder and helped him to walk.

"What should we do about them?" Aziraphale said as they limped slowly towards the door.

"Without that necklace Beelzebub has no power. And Gabriel's been neutralised…" He spat some blood on the floor. "Lucky find, that. Gabriel is pretty fastidious about labelling things. Found that vial in his study. Back-up against Beelzebub, I think, not that it would have worked against them. Magic neutraliser. Gabriel won't be causing us any more trouble."

"How did you know to take it?"

Crowley shrugged, then winced in pain. "Didn't," he said simply. "I'm just paranoid, and a bit of a kleptomaniac. And very, very lucky..."

Aziraphale glanced at the two prone but still moving bodies on the floor. "Should we not- I mean to say, they are still _alive _. Ought we not..." He didn't really want to finish that sentence.

Crowley shook his head.

"Nah. We don't- Ngk. You were right. We can be _better _than that."

"What then?" Aziraphale asked, pausing as they reached the Tower door. He had the key in his hand. The key to his freedom.

"They seem to like each other's company," Crowley replied, coughing. "Let them keep it."

And so, with Crowley in his arms, Aziraphale finally left the Tower.

And Aziraphale locked the door.

oOo

In the months that followed, the Kingdoms of Annwyn and Techduinn officially declared an end to their never-ending war. For the first time in history, peace fell over the lands. Of course, with this came a great deal of upheaval; peace presented challenges that the warmongering states were ill-equipped to deal with.

But they did deal with them.

The return of Prince Crowley, and the miraculous reappearance of Prince Aziraphale was met with celebration and confusion, particularly as the two Princes re-emerged together, and with a pact of friendship that was extended to all citizens of both nations. Both immediately laid down plans for establishing something called _Democracy _(a thing Aziraphale had read about in his histories of other lands and had always thought to be quite a good idea). The people would rule _themselves _from that point on. The people would have a _choice _, without manipulation by corrupt and tyrannical powers from above.

And then, one day, once all of the necessary wheels had been set into motion, Prince Aziraphale and Prince Crowley were gone.

No one saw either leave, no one knew where they went, nor when (or indeed _if _) they ever intended to return. They went down in the history booksas near-mythical figures; a pair of Guardian Angels who swept down and ended the war and left the People to govern themselves. They became legends, their fates forever unknown.

But, if you had been standing on the edges of a battlement of a now-redundant fortress on the borderlands between the two Kingdoms, you may have seen a man dressed in black waiting on a black horse. You may have seen a man dressed in light tartan and cream approach him on the road.

"Hey."

"Hello, my dear."

"Got here okay?"

"Yes. Hitched a ride on a mail coach. It was rather exciting."

"No one recognised you?"

"No. I was _incognito…"_

Crowley laughed.

"Right," he said, offering his hand. "up you get."

Aziraphale swung himself up onto Bentley and wrapped his arms around Crowley's waist.

In the mists of the early morning, the light of a dawn filled with promise breaking through the darkness, Crowley grinned.

"Come on, angel. Let's go for a ride."


	29. 29 Injured

'Crowley, you really must slow down, you are going to hit someone.'

Crowley turned to the Angel in the passenger seat, taking his hands off of the wheel to spread them in exasperation.

'Aziraphale, who exactly am I going to hit? We're in the middle of nowhere.'

'The _Cotswolds _are hardly the middle of nowhere…'

'Eh, may as well be. Not that I'm complaining. That's part of the appeal. I'm getting really _sick _of people, you know? I mean, not, ngk, not _existentially _. Just specifically when they are around _me _.'

'Mm, I know what you mean. All well and good in _theory _-'

'- but in practice a serious pain in the arse.'

'Well, yes. Nevertheless, Crowley, that is no reason to _mow them down_ _with your car…'_

'I won't hit anyone, angel. There's no one to hi-''

'Look out!'

Crowley yipped and the Bentley swerved even though the Demon's hands were still off of the steering wheel. Something impacted against the back of the car with a dull thud and bounced off of the trunk. A skateboard rolled out from under the hood and trundled placidly into a ditch.

The car screeched to a halt.

Crowley exhaled sharply. 'That wasn't my fault.''

Aziraphale glared and hurried out of the car. Three more people came around the corner, one on rollerskates and two on bicycles.

'Oh my _god _!' the one on rollerskates cried out in a panic, rushing clumsily over to the skateboarder who was now laying in the middle of the road with a dazed expression. 'What happened? Pen? Are you alright? You aren't going to die, are you? We still have a whole week left of holiday left, you can't _die _!'

The roller skater tumbled to the ground and threw their arms around the skateboarder, who had managed to push themself up onto their elbows.

'Hey, Zo. Yeah. Uh. I think I'm, uh- Did I just hit a car?'

'_ Dude _, you, like, totally scared me, bro. What the fuck!' Are you okay?'

'Uh… I think so… That was _gnarly _.'

'I am _so sorry _,' Aziraphale said, rounding the back of the Bentley and wringing his hands. ' Are you injured? Is there anything I can do? I know First Aid…''

Crowley joined him from the other direction. 'The kid'll be _fine _. Barely even hit-'

The small, colourfully-dressed roller skater raised their face to Crowley and Aziraphale with the expression of a mother-tiger who has just found a tourist trying to take a selfie with her cubs.

'What the _fuck _do you _think _you're _doing _driving that _fast, _you could have-'

Suddenly they stopped mid-rant and gave a little gasp. They elbowed their fallen friend.

'Pen. Pen. _Pen _. _Look _!' they stage-whispered.

'Oh my goodness!' the woman on the bike said quietly.

The man with the second bike said nothing, but did so in a very focused and deliberate way. Both bike riders kept their distance.

The skateboarder looked up and grinned in an absent kind of way. 'Dude…'

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. 'Do I _know _you?'

'Um,' the roller skater said.

'What? What's going on? Angel?'

The skate boarder began to sway precariously. ''Why's everything going all, like… whooshy?'

Then they promptly fainted.

'Pen!?

Aziraphale, forgetting his suspicion in the face of someone in need of help hurriedly crouched down beside the person they'd hit with the car.

'Why's that happened?! Is that supposed to happen?' the roller skater asked Aziraphale desperately. 'They're alright, right? They were just talking and then- Stupid human bodies! So _fragile! _I don't know how these stupid things work down here, it's _stupid _!' They sounded on the verge of tears.

'Don't worry, my dear,' Aziraphale said reassuringly, not really paying attention to the words the panicking young person was saying, 'your friend will be perfectly fine. Let me just take a look here…'

Aziraphale leaned over the unconscious skateboarder and gently placed his hands on their forehead.

He frowned.

'Um, Crowley, would you come over here a moment, please?'

Crowley tilted his head questioningly, but didn't hesitate in joining the Angel on the ground.

'What do you make of this?' Aziraphale said under his breath.

Crowley reached out and placed a hand on the skate boarder. As soon as his handmade contact, he flinched away, pulling his hand back as though he'd touched a hot stove.

Aziraphale looked at him, and Crowley nodded. '_ Whooof _… Definitely occult,' he said.

'Thought as much.'

They both turned to the roller skater, who looked back at them with wide eyes glistening with tears. 'Please fix Pen?'

Crowley began to say _Not until you tell us who the hell you are _, but Aziraphale had placed his hands back on the kid's head and repaired whatever it was that had been injured, thus rendering Crowley's attempt at information-blackmail moot.

The skate boarder sat up and blinked. Their eyes were a lot brighter now, and they weren't swaying anywhere near as much. 'Hey! Thanks, man! Woah, wait, you're Aziraphale? _And_Crowley? Dude, _cool _! Wait, did they _run me over _?'

The roller skater threw their arms around the skate boarder's neck. 'Stupid _idiot! _Watch where you are goddamned _going _!'

'Yeah, yeah, love you too, loser.'

Aziraphale smiled and Crowley rolled his eyes.

'Riiiiight...' the Demon cut in impatiently. 'Hate to interrupt, but_ what exactly _is going on here?'How do you know our names, for one?' He was feeling vaguely uneasy. Occult beings on Earth were, now more than ever, a very real threat for him and Aziraphale. But these two didn't feel particularly threatening…

'Oh yeah… Um, well, you see, it's sort of a long story, but-'

'Short version.'

'Er, okay. Well then tee-ell-dee-arr, Pen and I, um, me being Zophiel, nice to meet you, uh, well we are Angels. And Sam and Charlie over there,' the roller-skating angel jerked their head in the direction of the man and the woman with the bicycles, still nervously keeping their distance, 'are Demons.'

Crowley sprang to his feet and Aziraphale followed suit, positioning himself in front of Crowley protectively. Crowley tried to protectively step in front of Aziraphale at the same time, resulting in them awkwardly bumping into each other.

'Oh, no, don't worry!' the little Angel with the glittery blue roller skates said. 'We're not- Like, I mean, we're on _your side _. Well, not _officially _. That'd be a bit… But, I mean, like,_morally _we are. _Emotionally _. Seriously, like, we are _such big fans _. If I weren't so worried about Pen right now, I'd be, just, like, _oh my god. _Um, actually, on that not, is Pen alright now?'

Aziraphale glanced at Crowley, who shrugged and shook his head. He was not in the mood for _any _of this...

'Uh, your friend, um, Pen? Pen is fine,' Aziraphale replied. 'I think perhaps they took a bump to the head before they were able to cast a miracle to protect themselves.. Easily done when you aren't used to the possibility of injury. Um.'

'Who're your _friends _?' Crowley asked abruptly, glaring at the apparent Demons standing a few metres away. Aziraphale turned his head, following Crowley's movement with his eyes. The people with the bikes flinched.

'Sam and Charlie? They're alright, don't worry about them. They're like, um, well they're like _us _, me and Pen, but for Hell. We're assigned to Earth Observation.'

'Oh!' Aziraphale suddenly exclaimed. '_ That's _where I recognise you from! You two were at the last Quarterly Conference, weren't you? You presented after me, but you were late. You had that marvellous diorama of the bombing of Hiroshima!'

'That's _them _?' Crowley said incredulously.

Zophiel and Penemue stared up at Aziraphale, wide eyed.

'_ You remember us _?' Zophiel said, awestruck.

'You were quite difficult to forget,' Aziraphale smiled benevolently.

'Oh my _god _I can _literally _die happy…'

'I'd rather you didn't,' Aziraphale laughed.

'Yeah, great, happy reunion, brilliant-' Crowley cut in. 'But in case you had forgotten, angel, _since _then Heaven and Hell have both declared us _enemies _. How do we know that this lot haven't, ngk, been sent to, I don't know, take us out.'

Pen giggled. 'Like they'd send_ us _…'

'Yeah, Michael doesn't even trust us with the key for the paper cabinet…'

'What about _them _?' Crowley said, nodding again at the Demons with the bikes.

'Oh, Sam and Charlie are harmless,' Pen replied. 'Wouldn't hurt a fly. Shouldn't even really be Demons at all, they are_ way _too nice. Not that you can't be a nice Demon, I suppose, you've proved that. And some Angel's can definitely be total dickheads.'

'Michael…' Zophiel muttered, making Pen giggle.

'But no, yeah, Sam and Charlie are sound as a pound! They went with the second lot of the Fallen. Dunno if you knew them, Samiaza and Chazaqiel? No? Oh, well, anyway, they are only Demons 'cos of that whole _falling in love with a human _thing… Bit tragical, really. But nah, man, if Hell wanted to send, like, assassins or something, literally they couldn't have picked two worse hitmen…'Pen stopped suddenly, and turned to gaze dazedly at Zophiel. 'Woah. Dude, it just hit me that we are actually talking to _Aziraphale and Crowley _… This is so fucking surreal.'

'Dude, I knooooow. I _love them _…! Can you believe it? Fucking _unreal _!''

A little cog clicked into place in Crowley's mind. 'Wait wait wait wait wait. Did you two leave that weird note in our door last Sunday?'

' "_ Our _door"!?' Zophiel squeaked. 'So _cute! _'

'_ Shhhh dude, _be cool!' Pen looked up at Crowley with a sheepish grin. 'Uh, yeah, that was us. Zoph wrote it, not me...

'We were gonna go back to try and catch you, but then, like, the Bentley just, like, _went away _, and all the lights were off at the Bookshop _and _at your flat, and then we saw that note on the shop door saying _Closed Until Further Notice _, so we were a bit like- And so I nipped back up to our office to see what was going on, and saw that you'd left with a load of suitcases, so we were a bit like _oh great they've gone on holiday _, so that sort of ruined our plans, so…'

'What Zophiel means is that we'd sort of just given up on meeting you. And then bam! There you are, right in front of us, running me over with your car. What are the odds! Totally_epic _, man!'

'Sorry, did you say you have been _spying _on us?' Aziraphale said.

'Um.'

'Uh…'

'Well, yeah, but just a _little bit _.'

'And also that's like literally _our job _… So…'

'Which, by the way, is actually, like, I mean- You shouldn't get mad at us cos we _totally _saved your asses. Sort of.'

'Excuse me?' Aziraphale said, shaking his head, perplexed.

'Yeah, 'cos Michael wanted dirt on you, and like, we totally had like, you know, I mean, _so _many like… We had _so _much footage of you two being all super adorable and and super sweet and basically totally _married _, but we made sure Michael never ever ever got any of that, so, like, we totally bought you guys like, at least a few extra hours before that whole_Armageddon _thing blew up.'

'I'm not _adorable _…' Crowley muttered.

'Yeah, so don't be mad at us for just a _teensy _little bit of stalking, cos it was just a teensy bit, and we totally didn't know you'd be here. We only came because Charlie likes stars and wanted to get out of the city for a bit. And you two always talked about the Cotswolds, so it was a bit like, you know, if we couldn't _meet _you we could at least go on a little tour of places you'd visited. We were gonna go and stay at _The Ram Inn _tomorrow.'

'You held back information from Michael in order to buy us time?' Aziraphale asked, speaking in a soft tone that Crowley knew spelled _trouble _with a capital T.

'Well, yeah,' Zophiel shrugged. 'We weren't about to let them, you know, _do _anything to you. Like, I mean, at least we weren't gonna _help _. We love you guys.'

A fat drop of rain chose that moment to fall from the sky and land squarely on Penemue's nose. They went cross eyed to try and look at it, and pulled a face. 'Yeuch, _rain _. I _hate_stupid _rain _…'

Aziraphale looked at Crowley with big eyes.

'...No.'

'Crowley, it's starting to rain and we are in the middle of nowhere.'

'Angel, the Cotswolds are hardly the middle of nowhere…'

Aziraphale tilted his head just a little and pouted.

'Mmmnnngggkkkk...! Oh… Fine,' he said with a sigh.

Aziraphale beamed at his Demon, and then turned back to Zophiel and Penemue, who were, finally, getting back up on their feet. Zophiel wobbled on their skates and Penemue grabbed their arm to help keep them steady.

'As the weather looks like it's about to turn, might we offer you a lift back to wherever you are staying?'

Pen and Zoph stared open-mouthed at the Angel. '_ Really _?' Zophiel said. 'We get to ride in the _Bentley _?!'

Aziraphale nodded.

'Can we listen to _Queen _?'

'Can't bloody listen to anything else…' Crowley mumbled to himself, earning a smile from all three Angels, annoying him to no end.

'Of course we can,' Aziraphale replied. 'Why don't you go and get your friends?'

Pen and Zoph looked at each other awkwardly. 'Ah…'

'Might be a bit… um… difficult…'

'Is there a problem?' Aziraphale asked concerned.

Crowley pulled his jacket more closely around himself as more raindrops began to fall. 'What's wrong with them?'

'Erm… the thing is… Well, they're a bit shy…'

'And they are a bit terrified of you,' Zophiel blurted out. Pen elbowed them.

'Dude, don't say that.'

'But they _are _. I keep telling them that he's _nice _really, and they shouldn't be scared, but _god _, they are so fucking _timid _…' Zophiel turned back to Aziraphale and Crowley. 'They've got it in their heads that you are some super scary dude that's gonna, like, want to exact vengeance on them for Hell's part in, well, _everything _. We've told them that you aren't like that, but they don't believe it.'

Crowley preened. 'Yeah, well, I'm _not _nice.'

'What? Zophiel said.

'Oh, yes, please do bring them over. I will personally vouch for Crowley. He may be a _very scary _and _dangerous _and _definitely not nice _Demon, but he is also rather _lovely _.' Aziraphale looked over at Crowley with an affectionate smirk which only deepened when the Demon blushed and growled half-heartedly in protest.

Zophiel squeaked and squeezed Pen's wrist. '_ Cute! _'

'Yeah, um, that actually is super, super cute, but, it's actually not Crowley they are afraid of…'

'What?' Aziraphale said. He turned to look over at the two Demons, and they shrunk back at his movement. 'They are afraid of _me!?'_

'Yeah, obviously…' Pen said.

'Why? Because I'm an Angel?'

'No. Because you are _Aziraphale _…'

'What! But I'm the _nice one _!'

'Tell that to all those mob bosses and property developers you made disappear…' Penemue muttered beneath their breath.

'Dude, like, you stood up to _Satan _with a _flaming sword _!'

'Oi, I was there too, you know,' Crowley complained.

'Well, whatever, they are convinced that Aziraphale is super scary, so I dunno if they'll get in the car with him. But they can cycle back. Probably.'

'They are a bit hopeless with a map though.'

'And they don't know how to use a smartphone.'

'Why are Demons so _shit _with technology?'

Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose. 'I'm leaving.'

'No, wait! We'll persuade them. 'Cos you aren't going to disappear them, right Aziraphale?'

Aziraphale looked affronted. 'Of course not! Tell them that I really would love to get to know them. I really am the nice one. Why don't we all go out for dinner?'

'_ REALLY?!' _

'Okay, we'll convince them. Bee Are Bee.'

And with that Pen and Zophiel rushed over to their Demon friends.

Crowley (who hadn't, despite his threat, driven off) frowned at Aziraphale.

'Angel, I don't _want _to take them out to dinner…'

Aziraphale rubbed the backs of his hands. 'Yes, well, neither do I, really… But we _did _hit Penemue with the car, my dear. And I hate the idea of anyone being _frightened _of me…'

'Aziraphale, all of Heaven and all of Hell are _terrified _of you. They think you can breathe _hellfire _.'

'Oh, well. That's _different _.'

'Is it?'

'Yes. And look at them. They look rather sweet, don't you think? And I always felt quite sorry for those Angels who Fell for falling in love with humans, didn't you?'

'I always thought they were idiots, personally.'

'Really? Can't you sympathise even a little bit? Having to keep their friendships hidden, not being allowed to be friends with the one person you most want to be friends with...

'Ngk.'

'Facing the wrath of Heaven itself in order to stand with the one person you care about…'

'Mmmnnnnngggk.

'Risking everything for the person you lo-'

'Alright! Fine! We'll take them to dinner.'

Aziraphale did that happy-wiggle thing that Crowley always found extremely annoying, mostly because it was so cute that it made it impossible to stay annoyed at him. Crowley sighed and rolled his eyes.

Zophiel had taken off their rollerskates and was tentatively walking back over to Aziraphale and Crowley in socks.

'Can you wave at them, please? Just to show them that I'm not lying, and that you are actually totally cool with them coming over and getting in the Bentley? Please?'

Aziraphale and Crowley waved at the two timid Demons. They shyly waved back.

'Sam and Charlie, you said their names were?' Aziraphale asked Zophiel.

'Mmhm. Well that's what they prefer to be called, anyway. They are such anthrophiles. Like, I mean, I like humans, _especially _their soap operas and their Mills&Boon novels, but Sam and Charlie _really _like humans. I think they'd be happier if they could just _be _humans, honestly.'

'Ugh,' Crowley said.

'I know, right?!'

Penemue lead Sam and Charlie over to the car.

'Hallo!' Aziraphale said a little too cheerily. 'Lovely to meet you both. You can strap your bicycles to the rack if you like.'

'I'll do it. Don't want them scratching the paintwork…' Crowley glowered. 'Go on then, get in.'

Sam and Charlie smiled shyly at Aziraphale as they clambered into the back of the car. There were only three seats in the back, and Crowley had been about to miracle in an extra one so all four could fit, but Penemue hopped on Zophiel's lap and seemed quite happy there, so Crowley just left them to it.

He flicked on the radio and _Friends Will Be Friends _began to play.

Aziraphale climbed into the passenger seat. He reached across and squeezed Crowley's hand, half apologetically, and half something entirely else. Crowley looked at Aziraphale, and Aziraphale looked at Crowley, and they both smiled.

_'Eeeeeee CUTE! _'

With a screech of wheels, the Bentley drove away.


	30. 30 Catch

_London, Mayfair, 14:30, December 31st, 1949_

Crowley had just walked into his very new apartment in Mayfair when the phone rang. He hadn't even had chance to take off his shoes, yet. He sighed, throwing his coat over his settee and reaching the phone in his office just before the fifth and final ring rang out.

'You've reached Anthony Crowley,' he drawled into the mouthpiece of the state-of-the-art rotary phone on his desk. 'Who's this?'

'Crowley?' a familiar voice said from the other end. Crowley smiled and swung himself down into his chair.

'Hello Aziraphale,' he replied brightly. 'What's up?'

'_ What's u _\- What does that mean?'

'What? I mean- You know, like, how are you? How's life? What's wrong? What's- Well just _what's up _? Like, you know, Bugs Bunny. _What's up, doc__? _You don't- Ngk.'

Crowley pushed his hands up beneath his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. _Very cool _, he thought to himself. _First time the Angel calls you since the end of the war, and you quote Bugs Bunny at him. Slick._

'Oh. No, sorry I…' Aziraphale hesitated, the line going quiet for a moment. '...Is that that little animated cartoon rabbit?'

'Erm, yeah. Yeah, that's the one.'

'Oh! Yes, I _do _know him. Rather clever, those animations, aren't they?'

'Uh… Yeah. Yeah…'

'Bit _violent _for my tastes, but still awfully clever, nonetheless.'

Silence fell over the telephone line again.

'...Hello?' Aziraphale said.

'Yup. Still here, angel. Um. So, what's up?- I mean… You alright?'

'Oh, yes. Yes. Fine. All quiet on the western front, as it were.'

'Oh. Good.'

'And you? Everything well?'

'Yeah, I mean, same as usual, I suppose. Got a new flat.'

'Oh?'

'Yeah, over in Mayfair. S'nice. Top floor. Lots of windows.'

'Oh, really? In Mayfair? Golly, that's not too far from me.'

Crowley was very glad that this conversation was happening over the phone and not in person. 'Oh yeah, it's not- I didn't really- Is it? Hadn't noticed. Just, ngk, nice flat, thought I'd get it, didn't really consider-'

'Well I am very pleased for you, dear boy. You never seemed terribly happy with where you were in the East End. I'm sure Mayfair will suit you a great deal better.'

'Here's hoping,' Crowley replied. 'So, you calling for any reason or…?'

He heard Aziraphale clear his throat at the other end of the line. 'Oh, well, no, not really. Just thought it had been a while since I'd last spoken to you, thought maybe we could have a bit of a catch up.'

Crowley smiled in spite of himself. 'Oh, yeah?'

'And, well, I was wondering if you had any plans for this evening? For New Year's, I mean. Although I'm sure you have, but I- Well, I thought I'd ask anyway. Just in case.'

'Uh… Yeah, no. I- No. I'm not- No plans. Just- No. Nothing. You?'

'Not yet. I was thinking of inviting you out for dinner.'

'Were you?' Crowley said with an audible grin.

'Yes. If you weren't busy. Still weighing it up, though. Haven't quite decided whether I will or not,' the Angel said.

Crowley could hear the teasing smirk playing in his tone, and something in it made his chest feel simultaneously as though it were being crushed and as though it were expanding to encompass the entire universe. It was a bit disconcerting.

_God, _but he'd missed Aziraphale over the past century. Almost one hundred years he'd avoided the Angel, from the mid-1800s through to 1941. Granted, avoiding him had been made a lot easier by the fact that Crowley had slept through a lot of that period, but he hadn't slept through _all _of it. And yet they'd slipped right back into their- their _Arrangement _ (although Crowley knew they had gone far beyond _that _a long time ago) as easily as if nothing had happened. As if they'd never even been apart.

'Well, if it helps you at all,' Crowely said, leaning back in his chair and swinging his feet up onto the desk, 'on the Pro side I am an extremely engaging conversationalist. And I have_fantastic _taste in clothes, so just being seen with me automatically makes you at least, oh, forty-five percent more fashionable.'

'You make a good argument.'

'But, then again, on the Con side I can be quite deliberately aggravating. I also have a tendency to order exorbitantly expensive wines and irritate waiters with my very picky dietary preferences.'

'This is also true.'

'I see your dilemma.'

Aziraphale laughed.

'And it's New Year,' Crowley continued, getting into the swing of things, 'so you _know _that I will be _obligated _to get extremely drunk and possibly cause some minor yet very entertaining nuisances, just to bring in the 1950s under suitably demonic auspices. Couldn't blame you if you decided against it.'

'Hmm, as convincing as your arguments are, dear boy, I think that I might have to ask you anyway.'

'Terrible decision on your part, if you ask me. Honestly I think I might be more trouble than I'm worth, angel.'

'Oh, I don't know about that,' Aziraphale replied painfully softly, making Crowley choke on thin air.

'Hah,' Crowley just about managed to croak.

'Anyway,' Aziraphale continued to Crowley's relief, 'I know the New Year is an arbitrary marker of time, meaningless, really, but still. It's been a rather _trying _decade, what with the War and everything, so- Well, I just thought it might be nice to bring it in with a-' The Angel cleared his throat. 'Well.'

'Ngk- Yeah. Sounds good. Uh…' Crowley shook his head to dislodge the cloud of thoughts that had suddenly swarmed around him. 'So, what, pick you up at seven?'

'Yes, that'll be fine. We can have a proper catch up, then. Can't really do these things over the telephone.'

'Hah. Yeah. Right. Well, uh, I'll see you at seven, then.'

'Seven it is. Pip-pip!'

'Yeah,' Crowley said, as Aziraphale hung up the phone and the dialing tone sounded. Crowley smiled at the receiver. 'Pip-pip.'


	31. 31 Ripe

_October 10th_, _Some Time After Nahmageddon,_ _The Devil's Dyke on the South Downs_

"Come on," Aziraphale said, seizing Crowley's hand and attempting to pull him to his feet, "it'll be fun!"

"It will _not _be fun," Crowley said, obstinately refusing to budge from his comfortable position on the picnic rug. "You know what's fun? Staying here, finishing off this bottle of wine, and enjoying the last of this unseasonably nice weather. What do you want to go and pick blackberries for, anyway? You can buy them in Tescos."

"It's not as _fun _, Crowley," Aziraphale insisted, continuing to pull the demon's dead weight in vain.

"Why do we have to go _now _? We've got the cottage, we can stay down here as long as we want. What's the rush? We can just come back tomorrow or something."

"Tomorrow's the 11th!"

Crowley pulled a face. "_ And _? What's that got to do with… literally anything?"

"It's Michelmas!"

Crowley shook his head. "What? How much wine have you had, angel?"

Aziraphale brightened up a little in that particular way that always indicated an Angelic Storytelling Session was incoming.

"Michelmas and Blackberries!" the Angel chirped happily as Crowley relented and allowed Aziraphale to pull him up to his feet. "Have you really never heard the folk legend?"

"Nope," Crowley said. "Should I have?"

"I suppose not, not if you aren't particularly fond of blackberrying. Or of listening to old wives tales. They _say _that you are not supposed to pick blackberries after Michelmas - October the 11th now, although it used to be September 29th - because on that date the Devil spits on them, and… Well, I suppose that's reason enough not to pick them. I'm not sure what effect the Devil spitting on them is particularly meant to have, though. Over-ripens them, perhaps? Makes them _evil _?" Aziraphale waved his hands in a gesture either meant to depict _evilness _or an inept jazz dancing ghost. Possibly both.

Crowley glanced over at the Angel with a frown as he shoved the picnic materials back into their bag. "Why would the Devil spit on blackberries? Oddly specific."

"_ Because _," Aziraphale replied enthusiastically and with all of his usual panache for storytelling, "when he was cast out of Heaven, apparently on Michelmas, although I'm not sure where they got the date for _that _, he fell into a blackberry bush. And because the thorns were all, well, thorny and not particularly comfortable, and because he wasn't in a terribly good mood anyway having just lost a big fight with Michael, he started spitting on all of the blackberries. And making them over-ripen. Or become evil, or whatever."

"Right… Which "Devil" is this referring to? _The _Devil, or just any Devil?"

"Lucifer, I'd imagine, " Aziraphale speculated as they began to lazily saunter down the path. Aziraphale was keeping a hawk's eye look out for any particularly berry-laden hedgerows.

"Hmm. Yeah, no. Can't see it, myself," Crowley opined. "Spitting on plants isn't really Lucifer's style. He's a bit more _fire and brimstone _."

"Might not be referring to him, I suppose. Harassing foliage doesn't really seem his _modus operandi _." Aziraphale glanced at Crowley with a puckish glint in his eye, glittering out from an otherwise perfectly innocent face. "On an unrelated note, you didn't ever fall into a blackberry bush in front of any unsuspecting Medieval Britons, did you?"

"Not that I recall," Crowley laughed, "but I could have. Wouldn't rule it out. You never know."

"Oh! Look!" Aziraphale cried out suddenly, pointing to a hedge over the way that was heavy with large, ripe blackberries. "Oh, there's _hundreds _!" The Angel took Crowley's arm and excitedly dragged him over to the hedgerow.

Crowley couldn't help but smile as Aziraphale rolled up his sleeves ("_ I don't want to tear them on the thorns. I've had this shirt for fifty years, dear boy... _") and clumsily leaned up on his tiptoes to pick as many of the berries as he could carry in the small basket Crowley had miracled up for the purpose. The Angel always managed to get so animated over the most mundane of things. Six thousand years they had been on this ridiculous planet, and yet he still approached the world with an almost childlike enthusiasm. Crowley didn't understand how the Angel had managed to avoid becoming jaded, but he was desperately grateful that he had.

"What are we supposed to _do _with all of these?" Crowley asked dubiously as he eyed the small mountain of purple berries.

"Oh, well, you can do _all sorts _with blackberries," Aziraphale said, popping one into his mouth. "Apple and blackberry pie, apple and blackberry crumble, blackberry jam. I believe you can even make a sort of wine out of blackberries."

Crowley perked up at that. "I've never made wine," he said.

"Nor me," Aziraphale replied enthusiastically. "That's what we can do, then! We'll make blackberry wine!"

"Do you _know _how to make wine, angel? I'm not sure it's that easy…"

"Oh, we'll figure it out, I'm sure. It'll be jolly good fun!"

Crowely shook his head with affectionate exasperation. He knew there was no use protesting. If the angel wanted to make wine, they'd make wine. Or they'd at least try. Crowley had never been very good at saying no to Aziraphale.

They carried on walking along the hedgerows.

"D'you know why this place is called _Devil's Dyke _?" Crowley asked idly, helping himself to a handful of blackberries, and deftly dodging a swat from the Angel.

"Don't eat them all Crowley, we won't have any left."

"There are _loads _, angel."

"Hmmm. Well," Aziraphale said with a very half-hearted glare followed by a very full-hearted grin when Crowley poked a berry-stained tongue out at him. "And no, I don't know why it's called _Devil's Dyke _. Do you? Does it come with a story?"

"Yep," Crowley said, taking another blackberry. They were surprisingly good - perfectly ripe, ever so slightly tart. Much better than the ones from Tesco. "It's a bit ridiculous, though."

Aziraphale looked at him with such an open and interested expression that it made Crowley's heart jump around a bit. "Tell me?"

"Alright. It's _said," _Crowley began, clearing his throat and enjoying the chance to entertain the Angel with a folk story instead of vice versa, "that the ' _the Devil' _was hanging about around here, causing trouble, and one night decided that he would try to dig a trench between the sea and some local churches."

"To flood them?"

Crowley grinned. "Yeah, exactly. Anyway, the story goes that an old woman woke up and lit a candle, which woke up a cockerel, which crowed, and which scared the Devil, making him abandon his project and run away, leaving the trench unfinished. The unfinished trench, of course, being the _Devil's Dyke _."

"Oh, how interesting," Aziraphale said with utter sincerity. "There really are some intriguing stories behind place names, aren't there? I wonder if there's any truth to them."

Crowley didn't blush because he was far too cool for anything like that, but he did look a little sheepish. "Erm, well that one is pretty accurate, to be honest," he admitted.

Aziraphale looked momentarily taken aback, frowning and tilting his head like a confused cat. Then he burst out laughing.

"_ You _?!"

Crowley winced, but in good humour. "Yeeeeah…"

"But what- Why-" Aziraphale spluttered through his laughter. "Did you really think you could use _the sea _to flood a village, dear boy?"

"What? It was a sound enough plan!" Crowley pulled a face. "At least in theory, anyway."

"And the cockerel?"

"Right, okay, _that _bit does sell me a bit short. I wasn't just _afraid _of a cockerel, angel. Not like it just started crowing and I got startled and legged it. That bloody bird _attacked _me."

Aziraphale was laughing too hard to speak.

"It's not funny! Cockerels are _nasty _. And this was a big bugger, too. They've got _talons _! And those wings are no joke! Bloody thing flew straight at my head!"

"Oh- Oh, my dear boy- I'm sorry, I shouldn't lau-ah-ahh-hahahah!"

"And I didn't _dig _the trench, not the whole thing anyway. Bugger that for a game of soldiers, far too much work, that. The trench _thing _was already there, you know, just your run-of-the-mill river erosion and solifluction. I was just trying to, sort of, you know, _utilise _it. Creative adaptation to the landscape. Working with what I had… And I wasn't trying to cause a _proper _flood. Just, you know, bit of an inconvenience. Damage some church property, cause a bit of hassle by closing off the roads… I just had to find a way to get the sea into the pre-existing trench and Bob's Your Uncle. Insta-river. It was a good idea. I just- ngk- didn't factor a bloody killer chicken into the equation...

"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale panted, holding onto the Demon's arm for support as he tried to recover from laughing so hard, "you are _marvellous _, do you know that?"

Crowley raised an eyebrow and felt his ears start getting a little warm. "Ngk- Well, I mean, erm… Well _obviously _, yeah…" he stammered, trying and failing to play it cool. "'Course I know that. I'm _brilliant _. Obviously. Um." That hadn't quite been the response he'd expected from the Angel, and it had caught him somewhat off guard.

Aziraphale's face was flushed from laughter, and his eyes were bright with amusement and something else that Crowley didn't quite want to speculate on.

"Anyway, so that's the story behind _Devil's Dyke _…" Crowley muttered lamely.

Aziraphale managed to sober himself up enough to breathe without choking, and they resumed their walk along the trench path. Aziraphale hadn't let go of Crowley's arm, but had instead, at some point, Crowley wasn't exactly certain when, repositioned himself so that they were walking arm in arm.

"I wonder if there are any locals who could teach us how to make wine," Aziraphale pondered aloud as they ambled, sun-warmed, back down the path towards the isolated car park where they'd left the Bentley.

"Yeah, angel, I'm not sure that making wine is as simple as you are imagining. You probably need some specialist equipment, or-"

"Oh, it can't be_ that _hard, surely?"

"I don't know…"

"We'll figure it out."

"Hmmm…"

"Have a little faith, my dear boy!"

"Whatever you say, angel."

"And if we bugger it up, we can always come and gather some more. I doubt over-ripeness makes an awful lot of difference when it comes to brewing alcohol. Might even be preferable. Isn't sugar an important element in the fermentation process?"

"Mmm, something like that. _Devil's spit _making for a stronger alcohol sounds about right to me."

"Crowley, that's vile."

"It's your story, not mine."

They rounded a corner and the land dropped away in front of them, opening up a view that looked like something straight out of a Turner painting. Aziraphale audibly gasped, and even Crowley found himself somewhat spellbound by the beauty of it. The sun was just beginning to dip in the sky, spilling reds and pinks over the fluffy white clouds, a bright contrast against the cold blue of the autumnal sky.

Crowley felt Aziraphale tuck himself in a little closer, holding the Demon's arm a little tighter, dropping his head a little nearer to the Demon's shoulder.

"Gosh," he said simply.

"Yeah. It's not bad, is it?"

Aziraphale shivered and Crowley resisted the urge to put his arm around his shoulders.

"To think that all of this came so close to being destroyed…" the Angel said softly, in a voice laced with fragility and sadness and brimming over with relief.

Crowley looked down at him, watching him as he gazed, eyes wide and full of awe even now, even after everything, at the world that they'd risked everything to save.

"Come on, angel," he said. "Let's go home."


End file.
